#portable stretch wrap machine

[octagonsolution]

Reel Stretch Wrapping is specially designed for packing paper, film, foil, and similar materials manufactured in reels through a Paper wrapping Machine, Paper Packaging Machine, or Paper Roll Packing Machine.

[sl-walker]

The D/V Speedy

A snippet from one of the several WIPs I’m working on in the Arc of the Wolf:

--

[Corry] lost himself turning that over and over in his mind; it was only when he heard the D/V Speedy -- D/V meaning dead vessel, Speedy highlighting Scotty’s sometimes screwball sense of humor -- coming through the Gut from the other side of the harbor that he pulled himself back to the moment, grinning to himself and shaking his head.

The skiff's hull was painted in whatever spare marine paint had been stuck on people's shelves, so it looked like some kind of functional cubist art piece, sporting several different colors.  The hull itself was old wood and had been outright sunk before Scotty got his hands on it, but was now sound enough for at least the harbor and river.  There was a portable bed box from a utility work sled amidships, re-welded into a more boat-friendly shape, which also doubled as a lunch box or bench for passengers.

Then there was the engine.  A simple outboard, battery powered, solar charged, Scotty had then modified it like some kind of deranged mad scientist, pretty much literally laughing maniacally to himself as he did, until it could -- in theory -- launch that little skiff full off the water and into the air.

Or, at least, until gravity reasserted itself and smashed the hull and pilot into pieces in the process.

So, not only was it actually theoretically Speedy, but it also had the potential to make itself into a dead vessel in a very real and possibly glorious manner.

Frankly, that boat scared the hell out of Corry, though in a fun way rather than the genuine way he was still trying to let go of.  Or at least cope with.

He headed down the ramp to the floating dock to catch the bow line Scotty tossed to him, quickly securing the skiff. "I see the death machine has spared you for another day."

"Melodrama," Scotty answered cheerfully, waiting until the line was wrapped around the cleat to climb over various obstacles and then step over onto the dock. "It's only a death machine if ye don’t know how to use it."

"Uh huh," Cor said, flatly, playing up the doubtfulness in his tone. "If you insist.  Did you bring anything interesting back this time, Captain Scott?"

Scotty gave him a half-shove towards the water, not enough to send him in, nose wrinkling at the title. "I do insist, and I did not.  Just credits, enough to buy the week's mornin' coffee."

Talk about accepting a pittance for a professional's services, but it was Scotty’s business what to set his rates at.  Be it credits or sunken boat hulls or woven bracelets or snobby soap.

("I thought we agreed we were gonna buy a boat together when we retired," Corry had jokingly lamented, after getting a first look at the wreck that would later become the D/V Speedy, "and here you went and bought one without me."

Scotty had snorted at him. "Well, ye're wrong.  I didn’t buy it, I bartered for it, so ye're not gettin' outta that pact we made anytime soon."  Then he had eyed the warped, holed hull sitting like a small, beached whale on the grass by the house, and winced jokingly. "Bit of a stretch callin' her a boat, though."

"Not even Barely Afloat," Corry had agreed, which had promptly sent them both off into giggles.)

[billeyshah]

Portable stretch wrap machine

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[healthstyles-blog]

The Ultimate Guide to Knee Pain Relief Products

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Various devices can also help manage knee pain, providing both temporary and long-term relief.

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[octagonsolutions]

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[anantradingpvtltd]

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[packagingsuppliersperth]

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Source

[hakutaichou]

[CN] Main Story: Chapter 37 (Gavin Route)

⚠️ SPOILER AHEAD ⚠️

🚨 Warning: This post contains REALLY BIG spoiler from main story which some of them have not been released in JP, TW, Global, nor ASEAN servers. 🚨

A/N: “All Love Interest ANGST Route” takes place between Chapter 37-4 and Chapter 37-5.

Before read, please prepare a tissue and your HEART!!!

- Part 1 -

Northern Suburbs, temporary base for STF.

Days of natural disasters have raised the disaster prevention alert of Loveland City by several levels.

In order to deal with the doomsday, all countries in the world have established doomsday rescue operations headquarters, and jointly formulated a number of rescue policies.

The last issue of "Miracle Finder" is to record the scenes of these soldiers fighting against disasters in the doomsday.

The car stopped at the base station gate, and I got out of the car with camera crew.

In the empty wilderness, several special officers in white uniforms patrolled the surrounding area.

According to the forecast, a tornado is about to hit Loveland City, and the STF troops will be here to stop the crisis.

Minor: Brother, where did your commander go?

STF Officer : Commander is very busy, and has no time to see you.

Minor: Hey, we are...

MC: Hello, we have made an appointment for an interview, can you let us in?

The officer looked suspiciously at the press card hanging around my neck.

STF Officer: You are waiting here, I will confirm it.

Eli: She doesn't need to make an appointment.

STF Officer: Captain Eli!

Eli walked leisurely with his hands in his pockets, and nodded at me.

Eli: MC, long time no see.

He looked at the serious-faced officer again.

Eli: Do you know who she is?

The officer looked at me and then at Eli, with a suddenly realized expression.

STF Officer: Eh, she is Commander's...

I slapped awkwardly, blocked the officer's unfinished words first.

MC: If it is not convenient, let's go back first.

Eli: There is nothing inconvenient. By the way, do you need me to help you call Gavin?

MC: No need! I don't want to interfere with your actions.

Eli: Then don't bother, you are free.

Eli: However, according to forecasts, there will be less than five minutes before the tornado enters the area of ​​the city.

Eli: You'd better shoot near here, don't get close to the edges of those wind barriers.

MC: I understand!

Eli's remarks made everyone start scrambling to set up shooting equipment.

The wind became louder and louder, and a large funnel-shaped cloud soon appeared on the horizon, so gloomy that almost covered the entire sky.

Minor: I heard that the central wind speed of a tornado can reach 200 meters per second, which means that it will blow us away with people and machines in five minutes...

Willow: Close your crow's mouth.

Minor: Hey, I haven't finished speaking yet. With Bro Gavin, there is nothing to worry about.

The film crew quickly set up the machine, ready to start filming the entire process of STF team repelling the tornado.

After a while, the circular wind barrier erected all around shook violently, the surrounding trees were rustling.

A thick black shadow appeared at the end of the horizon, hurriedly approaching here.

The tornado is coming.

Photographer: Producer, the wind and sand are too big, it is difficult for us to get close to shooting!

MC: Let me find a way.

I thought for a while and took out the portable DV machine from my bag.

Just now Eli has divided the safety range for us. As long as we do not exceed that range for shooting, there should be no problem.

The violent wind that came in on the verge of blowing in the gap made the gap bigger, many of the team members who were in the front were injured.

STF Officer: The wind is too strong, we can't approach from the inner wall!

Anxious shouts from the STF members came from afar, and everyone present couldn't help but grab their hearts.

A calm and cold voice came from the communicator.

Gavin: I will go.

It's Gavin.

I resisted the urge to scream, my eyes and the camera stared at the distant sky unblinkingly.

The shifted wind barrier was quickly pushed back to its original position by another strong wind, and returned to the array.

The wind weakened, the tornado gradually deviated from its path.

Everyone waited nervously, and a few minutes later, the shadow of the tornado disappeared without a trace on the horizon.

Photographer: Amazing!!

MC: Gavin, you are so handsome!

Several injured officers were quickly taken away by the resident doctor, and I nervously searched for Gavin on the court.

From a distance, I saw a familiar figure approaching me.

My eyes lit up, and I ran towards him without hesitation.

MC: Are you okay? Isn't it hurt?

A look of helplessness passed across Gavin's face, he stretched out his hand, help me straighten my hair.

MC: What you looked like just now...

"Gavin, you are so handsome!"

At some point, my hand accidentally pressed the play button of the video just recorded, and the sigh was recorded verbatim into the screen.

MC: …When editing, this sentence will be deleted.

A smile finally appeared on his stern face.

Gavin: Wait here, I’ll come to you later.

.

- Part 2 -

STF Officer A: When Commander was still tasked as B-7, we have heard his rumors.

STF Officer A: Whether it is natural or man-made disasters these days, we can survive it, thanks to his judgment and decision-making.

STF Officer B: Yes, everyone was injured in the last rescue. Thanks to Commander, the situation was stabilized and the casualties were avoided.

STF Officer B: …But after returning, he formulated more stringent training plan.

MC: I see...

MC: Is there any moment when Commander makes you feel particularly tender?

The young officer in front of me "umm" for seven full seconds, and finally shook his head.

STF Officer A: More like medical insurance, count it?

Gavin: You seem to be very free.

Gavin stood behind us at some point, his voice cold.

STF Officer A: Commander!

The two STF members who were still babbling a while ago immediately stood up, saluted to Gavin together.

MC: .....

I turned around with a guilty conscience and looked at Gavin in front of me. When I looked down, I noticed that his wrist under his cuff was wrapped in gauze several times.

He just left temporarily, so he should simply treat the wound.

The crowd scattered like birds and beasts, soon only I and Gavin were left.

Gavin: What happened just now?

MC: Well... I just want to interview STF's recent work routine.

Gavin: I'm not asking about that. Your actions just now were dangerous.

MC: I said hello to Eli, and confirmed that I was in the safe zone!

I vowed to raise my hand, swear in my ear. Gavin's serious expression finally eased a little.

Looking at Gavin, I remembered all the rumors I had heard from the officers, their respectful and scared look, I couldn't help but laugh.

Gavin: What are you laughing at?

MC: Nothing, I was thinking about the last issue of "Miracle Finder", would you like to give a personal interview as Commander...

MC: But I'm just kidding, if it bother you, forget it.

Gavin: It's not bother.

His gaze moved down, and he scanned the line of drafted titles on the open page of the notebook in my hand.

Gavin: "The Commander's outside and inside". Do you want to know the outside, or the inside?

I smiled awkwardly, and the corners of Gavin's lips raised slightly.

Minor: Bro Gavin! Are you OK!

A noisy voice came from behind, Gavin glanced back and frowned quickly.

I don't know when Minor ran over, but he was dragged out by Willow before he finished speaking.

After both of them left, the surrounding area became quiet again.

Gavin: It's too noisy here. Let's change place.

I nodded and walked out of the base with Gavin.

***

A whistling wind came from the sinkhole in the distance, and a shallow layer of rain accumulated on the ground, reflecting the clear night sky and a little bit of starlight.

I followed the arched ridge all the way forward and photographed the traces of the tornado, asking Gavin one after another.

MC: I listened to Eli...

MC: NW put all its forces into establishing an airtight underground base, and didn't join your joint rescue...

Gavin: They aren't upside down.

Gavin: As long as that day doesn't come, STF won't give up protecting everyone here.

His tone is very flat, but it makes people feel extremely reliable.

I thought about it, and re-adjusted the DV mode, aiming at Gavin.

MC: Next, I will start an official interview.

Gavin: …Why do you want to give me an interview.

MC: Because you are the Commander of STF, what you say is the most convincing.

This interview is a temporary motive. I was not prepared for the question, so I just asked what I thought.

MC: The first question: What is the most important thing for the commander at the moment?

Gavin: Protect everyone's safety, and prevent disasters from happening.

MC: The second question: The commander felt that in this situation, for every citizens, what is the most important thing?

Gavin: This is varies from person to another.

…This minimalist way of answering questions, it's really Gavin's style.

MC: The third question...

Suddenly, the flapping sound of bird wings interrupted my question, and large swarms of pigeons started to start from deep in the woods.

MC: That is...

Gavin raised his head, looking solemnly at the flock of white pigeons in the sky.

Gavin: The abnormal weather in the past few days has caused the magnetic field in the vicinity to be disordered, and the return route of the pigeons has also been affected.

In the deep night, the pigeon flock wandered anxiously over the woods, flapping its wings constantly, as if calling for the return of their companions.

However, after the tornado struck, many birds were injured or died, and white feathers were scattered everywhere on the ground.

Several faint calls came from the bushes not far away.

Gavin and I approached and found two injured pigeons

One of them was badly injured, and dying; the other was still struggling.

MC: Will they die?

Gavin didn't speak, and rescued the two pigeons from the strange orange bushes, with a little blood stained on their messy wings.

It seemed to be frightened, its body trembling, and the warning sound of "cooing" as soon as we approached.

MC: Great, it seems okay!

Gavin: Be careful, don't get hurt by them.

Gavin: This is a wild pigeon that has not been domesticated, and is very wary of humans.

Gavin avoided the beak pecked by the pigeon, picked it up and checked it.

Gavin: No injuries.

The pigeon struggled to escape from his palm.

MC: Do they continue to fly forward?

Gavin made a soft "Mm" sound.

Gavin untwisted the withered grass entangled in its ankles, and another small gust of wind rolled up in his palms, drying its wet wings.

Gavin: If the wings are not wet, the flight home can be easier.

Its eyes rolled steadily, as if understanding the intention of Gavin, obediently gave up the struggle.

Perhaps after waiting too long, the group hovering in the sky gradually moved away, flying behind the invisible gray sky.

MC: Can this pigeon find its friends?

Gavin: Difficult.

MC: I see...

Gavin seemed to notice my loss, and changed his words.

Gavin: But it is not impossible.

Gavin: The migration of pigeon, is actually a story about commitment.

MC: Committed?

Gavin: Fulfill their promise to go back.

Gavin: No matter how far you fly, you will definitely arrive where you want to fly as scheduled.

The pigeon in his palm seemed to sense Gavin's words and tried to wave its wings again.

The small gust of wind gradually increased, escorting this child to the sky.

Soon, it struggling to flap its wings forward, disappearing into the night sky and the end of the stars.

MC: In fact, whether it is them or the wind, they all know their direction.

MC: Even if it takes a long time to walk, even if it will go away, it will not stop.

MC: Is that right?

Gavin didn't speak, but gently held my hand.

At this time, a few STF members came towards us, saluted to Gavin, and solemnly reported the situation of the other bases.

Gavin's face was always calm, as if no matter what kind of danger he encountered, he would not have the slightest panic.

MC: Is there another task?

I couldn't help but whisper to Eli, who was beside me, and he nodded.

Eli: I heard that there was a violent conflict in the city, and the situation is not very optimistic. They have to come to support tonight.

MC: I see... thank you very much.

Eli: Don't worry, Gavin will stay in Loveland City to lead. He is the backbone of all of us.

I'm a little embarrassed to be guessed by Eli.

Eli: But we have to rush to deal with a flood tonight. The disaster is dangerous, so you can't follow.

MC: I know, you guys must come back safely.

The bonfire ignited at the distant base dispelled the darkness, and the constantly rising tongue of fire brightened the night sky red, and occasionally there were a few crisp clashes of wine glasses and laughter.

This temporary celebration and happiness seem extremely precious on such a night.

I involuntarily rubbed my palms tightly, and some hope that the "moment" in that prophecy would come soon.

No matter where I go or what I experience, it would be great if I could reverse the ending.

After the officers reported, Eli stepped forward and said something to Gavin, patted him on the shoulder, and suddenly looked at me again.

Eli: I'll leave first, and meet again later, the young couple get along well.

Eli left after speaking, waved goodbye to me before leaving.

There was a brief silence all around, only cheers from afar broke the silence between us.

MC: Are you leaving now?

Gavin: Mm, we will leave in two hours.

I stepped forward, took his hand gently, and sat down on a rock.

The wind in the wilderness is blowing on the long stretch of grass in the distance, and there is a green smell in the darkness that fluctuates with the night.

MC: Then you need a good rest now.

MC: I wonder if Mr. Commander, who has been busy all day, is willing to agree to my request.

Gavin: Can I take a rest?

I was stunned by him, after a few seconds, I didn't expect Gavin was directly rest on my knee.

Gavin: Thank you for coming.

MC: ...You're welcome.

I opened my mouth again, trying to remedy my stupid answer, but Gavin had already closed my eyes.

For a long time, long and even breathing sounded from my knees.

This land is shrouded in night and cold, but my heart is very bright and warm at this moment.

I gently stroked his finally showing tired eyebrows, my heart soft.

MC: Thank you for the hard work, Gavin.

I hope you can also have a good dream.

.

- Part 3 -

In the vast expanse of the universe, a swarm of comets quickly fell to the blue planet.

Cities, forests, mountains, rivers and oceans were all engulfed by heat waves and tongues of fire, and vanished in the blink of an eye.

It seems that I am the only one left in the whole world, and the stars gradually shrink, hitting my heart like a burning bullet hitting the bullseye---

I woke up from the nightmare and took a deep breath.

Gavin: Woke up?

MC: I'm sorry... I fell asleep too.

I raised my head, met Gavin's worried eyes.

Gavin: Had a nightmare?

MC: Not a manifest dream, but a sweet dream.

MC: I dreamt that we became super cosmic warriors, saving the world from the brink of destruction.

I cheered up, and made a joke pretending to be relaxed.

Gavin: It seems that dream should be kept longer, it is best not to wake up.

He sighed, and gathered the jacket over me again.

There are footsteps approaching behind him.

When Gavin got up, the officer came over and whispered something to Gavin.

I was stunned, and quickly reacted: He is going to the next temporary base to command the mission.

MC: Are you leaving soon?

Gavin: There are still ten minutes left.

MC: Then I have one last question to interview you.

I turned around, fixedly looked at Gavin.

MC: Before the end, what is your wish?

Gavin: ...My wish?

MC: This is the question I want to ask you, so you can answer me alone.

MC: I have interviewed many people these days, and heard many people’s wishes, but I haven't had a chance to ask your wishes.

MC: I want to know what Gavin's wish is.

Gavin's expression was a little surprised, and he didn't speak for a long time.

Perhaps, this question is too vain and slow, he never put his wishes on unrealistic things.

???: Look, there are meteors!

The cheers of the crowd came from far behind, and Gavin and I raised our heads together.

The sky was passing by a meteor, dragging a bright trail, from loneliness to grandeur.

Under this bright and grand light, everything becomes small and quiet.

MC: Beautiful...

The falling trajectory of the meteor is long and narrow in the night sky.

The ubiquitous light illuminates the mountains and valleys in the distance, the river at the end of the horizon, and the city.

It also illuminates every face looking up on the earth.

Gavin suddenly grabbed my hand, his voice was very soft.

Gavin: When I was seventeen, I did have a wish.

Suddenly a large swarm of snow-white flew across the sky.

The flying dove in the dark night fluttered its wings and dropped a large piece of white feathers, drowning his voice.

I looked up in a different place, saw his star-lit eyes, and wanted to ask him what it was.

He looked at me with a deep retention and sadness. I always felt, that there were many emotions that I didn't understand.

In a second of distraction, I almost blurted out if he knew that I was going to leave.

But I didn't have the courage to speak up to verify this conjecture.

I grabbed his hand and tried to make a smile.

MC: I used to see meteors and could only think of wishing. I didn't expect that one day the meteors would actually destroy the world.

Gavin: Are you scared?

I shook my head.

MC: In fact, as long as I'm by your side, I'm not afraid at all.

Gavin lowered his head and put the kiss on our folded hands.

Gavin: I promise you.

Gavin: I won't leave you, until the last moment.

I heard his heartbeat on his chest, closed my eyes, and silently made a vow to the meteor.

May the world never end.

May he always be by my side.

.

- Part 4 -

The news broadcast the arrival time of the X1917 comet cluster, as expected, without any change.

As a commander, Gavin became more and more busy, and the occasional time together became exceptionally short.

Today, the STF is holding a major meeting.

Those present were all commanders from various countries' combat headquarters participating in this joint doomsday rescue.

After the meeting, I put down the interview draft and couldn't help but look at the meeting room.

Gavin came out last, and he was talking to a foreign man with a high nose and deep eyes.

The man seemed to notice me waiting on the side, he turned to me, his face stretched.

Foreign Commander: Eh, you are the producer. I have watched your show, Miracle Finder, which is great.

He gave me a thumbs up.

MC: ...Thank you!

I can't fully understand their small talk. I can only vaguely hear the commander's admiration and gratitude to Gavin.

After the conversation, he saluted to Gavin, and then left with his men.

I couldn't wait to walk to Gavin, wanting to open my mouth, but hesitated again.

The news specially told him today, perhaps compared with the important news he comes into contact with every day, is nothing at all.

Gavin: What's wrong?

MC: Gavin, I have good news for you.

MC: After the previous program was broadcast, some citizens contacted us and wanted to send you a loving lunch, medical supplies, and...

I counted the enthusiastic letters I received these days with my fingers. He listened carefully, his lips curled up unconsciously.

Gavin: STF doesn't need these for the time being, but it can be sent to disaster areas with more dangerous conditions.

Gavin: You can figure it out. I'll give you some addresses later.

MC: Okay!

Gavin's gaze flickered slightly, as if he had to say something, the communicator on his waist ticked.

Gavin: ...Wait for me.

MC: It's okay, go ahead.

I cheered up and bid farewell to Gavin, but the loss of separation was still unstoppable in my heart.

I let out a sigh of relief and began to think about how to arrange these supplies.

This time we are, fighting side by side with all mankind.

***

The last day of the countdown.

The days of waiting regretfully finally arrived, but it seemed to be no different from usual.

MC: How is the situation today?

STF Officer A: There were no casualties, and damaged communications and traffic are slowly recovering.

STF Officer B: That's right, Commander was not injured, so Sister-In-Law, don't worry.

MC: ...Okay.

While chatting, I looked around for Gavin's figures.

Soon, a figure dangled from behind the door of the headquarters.

Gavin, who had changed his uniform, walked towards me, the cuffs of the gray jacket were slightly rolled up, revealing a strong wrist.

At the moment when my eyes were facing each other, Gavin had already walked to me, and I was stunned for a second.

I raised my head and looked at him, as if I had guessed something in my heart.

Gavin: Come?

MC: You, there are no tasks today?

Gavin: I took half a day off.

MC: Eh....?

Gavin: I'll accompany you out for a walk.

Behind him, the whistle and the confession sounded one after another, Gavin faintly swept back, and the group of people suddenly made noise again.

MC: Is it really okay? I think it’s good to stay here...

Gavin took my hand and walked out. I turned around a little hesitantly, afraid that he would waste too much time.

Unexpectedly, Eli also waved at me and made a "rest assured" mouth shape.

Gavin: Leave them alone.

MC: I don't know why, but now I always have a feeling of occupying major public resources.

The corners of Gavin's mouth twitched slightly, and he looked at me helplessly, sighed.

Gavin: Can't the Commander go on a date after get off work.

He stood still in front of me, a little serious in his amber eyes.

Gavin: What stands in front of you now, it's Gavin that belongs to you only.

***

There was no one on the street, and the few shadows of trees stretched to the end of the empty road.

We unknowingly walked to the vicinity of Loveland High School and ate the last bowl of noodles at the still-open Lynn's Kitchen.

A live interview of STF to fight off the tornado is being broadcast on TV, and the boss exclaims while watching.

Boss: Did you really repel the tornado?

Gavin: Some news likes to exaggerate, you don't have to believe it.

MC: Gavin, this was taken by me.

Gavin: …Hmm, it was repelled.

Boss: Add more beef for you. Do you want other side dishes?

MC: I want it!

Gavin: Are you sure you can eat it?

MC: I'm able to eat it!

Gavin put down his chopsticks, looked at the side dishes on the table and the pile of beef in the bowl, he expressed doubts to me with his eyes.

MC: Is this a new flavor of noodles? It seems that I have never eaten it before.

Boss: Did little girl eat it? I updated the recipe of the soup. How does it taste?

MC: Super invincible and delicious!

Boss: That's good.

Boss: There are too many things that have been missed in a lifetime, and it's not worth beating.

Boss: However, it is still a pity that more people haven't tasted this bowl of noodles.

Boss: Thank you for finishing it.

***

MC: I'm so full...!

Gavin: You ate all the side dishes the boss gave.

MC: Because I don’t want to be a starving ghost...

Gavin: Nonsense.

Gavin gently knocked on my forehead, his eyes turned to the school gate across the road, his expression suddenly softened.

Gavin: You saved a cat here.

MC: You have beaten a few people here.

Gavin laughed.

Unexpectedly the school door closed tightly. Gavin noticed the loss on my face and patted my shoulder lightly.

Gavin: Do you want to go elsewhere?

MC: What a pity... I still want to go back and have a look.

MC: Wait, I get it!

***

Gavin: Are you sure you want to do this?

MC: No one, is afraid of anything!

With Gavin's help, I finally climbed the outer wall of the back door of the school.

MC: I wanted to do this a long time ago.

I clapped my hands, turned my head, Gavin was still standing under the wall, looking at me with a little speechless and a little funny.

MC: It doesn't matter, there is no one in the security room and no one in the school building. Come up soon.

Gavin touched his lips, with an expression of defeat by me.

He easily climbed up the wall and sat down beside me.

Gavin: Ready?

He seemed to see my hesitation and looked at me holding back a smile.

Gavin: I will count down for you?

This is the end of the matter, regret is useless. I took a deep breath and slowly released the fingers that were holding behind me.

Gavin: Three, two---

Before "One" hasn’t shouted out, I subconsciously let go of my hand because of tension, and my falling body was quickly surrounded by a gust of wind.

The violent heartbeat hit the tympanic membrane, and we landed safely on the ground.

MC: I didn't seem to have eaten so much just now.

Gavin: Can't walk anymore?

MC: ...I'm afraid you won't be able to hold it.

Gavin: Hold tight.

As if to verify this sentence, his hand pierced my knees and hugged me to the direction of the school building.

MC: But like this...!!

Gavin gently raised the corners of her lips.

Gavin: No one, is afraid of anything.

***

We came to Gavin's classroom.

The classroom door was not locked. I turned on the light, saw that the writing on the blackboard had not been cleaned.

MC: Gavin, which table is yours?

Gavin was a little surprised. He looked around and pointed to the back of the classroom by the window.

Gavin: There.

MC: Is this one?

I walked to the back of the classroom and stared curiously at the graffiti on this table.

MC: "Early" was carved upside down on the table,... I can't tell that you are quite easy to learn.

Gavin: …It’s the back one.

I followed Gavin's gaze and looked back. A desk was in the corner next to the wall.

MC: But after so many years, It must have changed many seats, and the table may not be this one.

I took the opportunity to sit down in the seat where Gavin had been, and looked around.

MC: Um... the vision from the blackboard is not very good.

MC: But the ventilation is good, it should be comfortable to sleep here in the afternoon.

I don't know if it was because of listening to my serious comments, there was a sporadic smile on his lips.

Gavin: Why are you talking about that suddenly?

MC: I told you before, we organized ordinary citizens and Evolver to build a wishing wall.

MC: I thought I would see a lot of fanciful and weird wishes, but after seeing it, I realized that this was not the case.

MC: "I want to eat hot pot for the last time", "Reunion with my family", "I want to reconcile with the lover who broke up"...

MC: That’s why I realized, everyone’s strongest wish is, actually a regret that has not been realized.

MC: That's why...

I want to make up for these regrets.

We left the classroom, and walked down the stairs. The sound of different footsteps echoed in the dim staircase.

Gavin: Are you scared?

MC: Hm?

Gavin: I remember many horror legends circulated in schools.

He slowed down as he spoke, always keeping a step away from me in front of him.

I hesitated for a moment and wanted to tell Gavin that I was not afraid.

In other words, I'm more afraid that the road under my feet will be finished soon than I'm afraid of these stories.

I hope the stairs below my feet can be longer, preferably without end.

MC: .....Gavin.

I stood on the edge of the steps, turned my head, and could not help calling his name.

A repressed impulse, drove me to do something.

He stood on a step lower than me, stopped, and looked at me with some doubts.

The few rays of light that leaked out of the window fell between us, cutting light and dark apart.

This light is like a crease, and I stand in front of him now, as if witnessing the folding of the years that have separated us.

Gavin: I know what you want to say.

His voice was lightened for an instant, with a sure smile.

The next second, he bent down, clasped my chin, and kissed me.

.

- Part 5-

The dim lights on both sides of the road passed through the dense leaves, scattered on the ground.

The library didn’t open, Gavin and I were strolling around the empty campus.

There seemed to be a warm touch remaining on the lips, I looked away pretending to be calm, always embarrassed to meet Gavin's gaze.

The bell rang in the distance, and the ginkgo leaves rustled down.

For a time, none of us spoke.

The meteors in the sky are getting denser, and my heart is beating faster and faster.

An uneasy premonition told me, that moment was approaching.

MC: Although shooting stars can be seen every day, it seems that many wishes are too late.

I pretended to smile with ease, breaking the deadlock between us. Gavin seemed to perceive something, and his amber-colored eyes looked at me.

Gavin: MC, You haven't finished what you just said.

Gavin: You keep asking about my wishes, what about yours?

MC: My wish...

My voice couldn't help but stop.

The ginkgo leaves on the branches are crumbling, and some are knocking on the windows of the school building behind them.

These leaves rustle on the branches in summer, and they creak when they fall in autumn. Every leaf makes a nice sound, but I have never noticed it.

I suddenly knew what my wish was.

I want to walk slowly at the school gate before the class bell rings.

I want to look up in the library and take a good look at the teenager sleeping opposite me.

I want to catch the wind at the age of seventeen, and say goodbye to him before the ginkgo leaves fall.

I looked up at Gavin, suddenly I wanted to cry.

MC: What if my wish will never come true?

Gavin was taken aback, for a long time, he rubbed the top of my head.

Gavin: Then go ahead.

Gavin: The wish that may not be reached now, but if you come back one day, it's already by your side.

I took a deep breath and grabbed his hand.

MC: Gavin, I am going to do something very important now.

MC: I kept busying myself a few days ago, thinking that if I didn't think about it, I wouldn't be sad until that time.

MC: But now I want to thank you, you gave me the courage to face it.

I felt like crying, but still managed to squeeze a smile.

MC: I'm leaving.

Gavin was silent, he gently stretched out his hand and stroked my face.

Gavin: I seem to be very bad at saying goodbye, and I have never been able to say goodbye to you every time.

Gavin didn't ask why or where I was going. He seemed to have known about this a long time ago.

Just hugged my arm hard and hot, as if to hold something at the last moment.

MC: This time it's my turn to say goodbye to you.

MC: We have experienced so many things, so this time is nothing.

I feel my body is getting lighter and lighter, and my limbs are gradually losing consciousness.

Perhaps that moment has come, my mind is getting harder and harder to concentrate, only vaguely seeing deeper and deeper sadness in my eyes.

MC: You told me...

MC: Regardless of the wind, the pigeon has its own direction, and I think I should do the same.

MC: But I am a person who has no sense of direction. I may go the wrong way and it will take a long time to get back to you...

Tears still fell unconvincingly, I sucked my mouth and wanted to speak again, but Gavin interrupted my words firmly.

Gavin: It doesn't matter if you go the wrong way.

Gavin: It doesn't matter if you come late.

Gavin: When I was seventeen, you let me know the direction of the wind.

Gavin: So it’s the same for you, just walk in your direction, no matter where you lead...

Gavin: My wish, is to meet you.

The white light was like a trickle, slowly seeping from the girl's body, illuminating the whole night.

MC: When the time comes, please correct my direction.

Feathers fluttered slowly from the girl's body.

The sky seemed to show a gleam of light, and the wine fell on the white feathers piled up under the girl's feet.

Gavin stood there quietly for a long time, his eyes always on the place where the girl disappeared.

He looked at the feathers scattered on the ground and the ginkgo that was blown away by the wind, his lips moved slightly and his hands slowly dropped.

The clear and distant "ding dong" echoed in the empty campus---

The bell rang after class.

.

[addercharmer]

Izumi is sleeping soundly when the emergency ringtone she set for Rei starts going off.

She's literally jumping out of her bed as she hits the answer button, wide awake and ready for anything.

"Rei!" She exclaims, worried as all hell as she throws a hoodie over her shoulders.

"Please...park...Touya…" Is all Izumi can make out, she's pulling on her slipper boots when the call is cut off as soon as she opens her door after getting them both on.

"Shit, shit, shit." She swears as she throws open Nezu's door.

"Dad! Rei called, call Tsukauchi and Recovery girl!" She shouts at him before she's slamming the door behind her and bolting out of the house as quickly as she can.

She runs full sprint to the park. Izumi sees Rei holding Touya who is bleeding from multiple cuts. Natsuo and Fuyumi are clinging to her skirt, and Shoto is in a baby carrier on her back, all of them shivering in the cold from the lack of proper clothes for the cold.

Izumi runs to them, she pulls Touya into her own arms before she crouches in front of the two kids holding onto Rei.

"Get on kiddos, we are gonna be moving fast." She tells them calmly, she feels four arms wrap around her throat and four legs around her waist, standing carefully to adjust to the weight.

"Follow close Rei, we aren't far away." Izumi says over her shoulder as she starts to move as a fast jog, Rei keeps up well but Izumi can tell she's running on fumes.

The door is unlocked as Izumi crashes into the house, she doesn't bother kicking off her shoes she just bolts to the dining room to lay Touya on the table, she heads back to the living room and crouches by the couch where Rei is sitting clutching Shouto closely.

"Off we go kiddos, go sit with your mom. I'll take care of Touya until Recovery girl gets here." She's gentle but firm when she talks to them, she knows better than to sound panicked, it takes a lot of effort to stay calm.

On her way back to the dining room she grabs the first aid kit from the small closet, she's already opening it as she puts it next to Touya's head on the table.

"Sorry Touya, this will probably hurt." She whispers to the unconscious boy.

First she pulled out scissors and cut away his shirt and pants. She's angry, so, so angry at the wounds on the child she wants to go and beat up Endeavour right now.

"Tsukauchi-san and Chiyo-san are on their way, Tsukauchi's E.T.A is five minutes, Chiyo's is half an hour." Nezu tells her from the entryway.

"Awesome, I can get the surface wounds stitched and splint any broken bones, she will just need to check the rest." Izumi says as she's pouring rubbing alcohol over her hands and into one of the collapsible bowls from the kit, she won't use it again unless it's to wash her hands the same way a second time.

She's snapping on her gloves before she pauses. "Can you call the gang over? Rei is gonna be busy with Tsukauchi and I can't watch all the kids if I'm in here with Touya. You also know where the USB is for evidence, I've been updating it daily." She asks and then explains and directs, she feels the pinch between her eyebrows as she concentrates on too many things.

Nezu nods at her and heads back to the living room leaving her alone to work on the injured boy, Izumi is thankful that she can leave everything else to him now and focus on helping Touya.

The doorbell rings as Izumi is halfway through wiping down Touya's body to see the wounds better, the cuts are bleeding heavily and it's worrying her about the amount of blood being lost. She ignores it and finishes what she's doing, she ignores whoever just walked into the room trying to talk to her as she resets Touya's ankle and then wrist.

He wakes and screams loudly when the snap of his wrist bone going back into place echoes along with it.

Izumi has to push him back down on the table. Her hands are firm but her voice is gentle, suddenly there are another pair of gloved hands pressing on Touya's shoulders.

"Hey Touya, it's Izumi, I don't know if you remember me from the park but we played tag together." She says as she wraps the wrist tightly, even though he's fallen unconscious again at the pain, she needs to talk right now just to filter some thoughts.

"I'm sorry I hurt you but I had to put your bone in the right place." She explains. "I'm also really sorry that it's gonna hurt when I stitch these cuts closed, I will put numbing cream on them, but sometimes it isn't enough. A few of them I could glue together but I never trusted the glue to hold personally, I used to have to stitch myself up a lot so I got pretty good at it, really I should get my first aid certification."

Izumi notes she will have to wipe each cut again before she uses the cream and starts stitching. She feels terrible that she has to hurt Touya to help him.

She starts with first turning Touya over to get at the worst cut that goes diagonally across his back, from left shoulder blade to deeply into his right buttock, it's the longest and deepest, any deeper would have nicked his spine.

"Shit." Izumi hears Oboro swear from where the other hands are helping her.

"Put a doughnut shaped cloud under his face." She demands quickly now that she knows her helper can make Touya more comfortable.

She loses herself in the motions. Clean, cream, stitch, clean, cream, stitch, as she moves from cut to cut. She can feel herself humming and trying to comfort herself and Touya who is still unconscious.

Oboro at one point was ordered to go get the other two first aid kits, Izumi had almost run out of thread and she felt her needle becoming blunt making it that much harder and no doubt more painful to use.

She's working on the last cut that is a deep split through the corner of Touya's bottom lip when she's broken from her trance by something hitting her lightly on the thigh.

"Good work girl." Recovery girl says to her before she's pulling a chair over and hopping up on it.

"We will have to expand further on this talent." The woman says again as she examines the stitches and splints critically before nodding in approval.

Izumi just nods herself and backs away from the table with a heavy sigh, she's tired and her neck and shoulders hurt from being bent over and the constant repeated motions.

"I scanned him with a portable device that allows me to check bones and inner tissue as you worked." Recovery girl tells her and turns the machine to show Izumi. "Tell me what you see."

"Bruised ribs, bruised lower intestine, broken left wrist and right ankle, broken nose, concussion, multiple contusions." Izumi list's blankly. "I don't know how to set a nose." She also admits woodenly, she hadn't noticed that it was broken.

"Come here." Recovery girl directs, her voice is a lot sharper than Izumi was used to.

Once Izumi is close enough Recovery girl grabs her hands and frames Touya's nose with her fingers, then simply uses her hands over Izumi's own to jolt the cartilage back into place.

"Like that." Recovery girl says simply. Izumi feels a little sick at how the woman just...seems to be fine with a child laying on a table covered in stitches with broken bones.

Recovery girl's lips then stretch and she plants a kiss on Touya's head and right ankle. "All I can really do is clear up the concussion and heal the broken ankle." She admits, this time Izumi can hear the sorrow and it loosens the tight feeling in her chest.

"Go clean yourself up girl, the others need to know the boy's status, and you can't tell them covered in his blood. Shirakumo too, he can make a screen so they won't see you."

Izumi feels like she has been wrung out, she is numb but present. She and Oboro walk behind a wall of clouds up the stairs, he uses the bathroom first to clean his arms of the small amount of blood on them, he leaves his hoodie in the bathroom as well because of the blood from where he had to lean across the table, thankfully his shirt is clean and he doesn't have to borrow one of hers.

Izumi gets into the shower fully clothed, she just stands there under the spray lost in her anger and sadness.

She collapses on her knees and cries, roughly ripping her clothes off her body and throwing them at the wall of the shower. She wanted to scream but knew that it would be heard so she just choked on her sobs behind her hands, she hadn't been able to protect them, she failed and now a seven year old boy was paying for her mistake.

Izumi made herself calm down, she forced it all into a box to deal with later, she knew once she had spoken to Tsukauchi she could break down trusting the others to comfort Rei and her children, Izumi couldn't, she knew she couldn't.

Struggling back to her feet, Izumi was happy that her hair was in tight twin braided buns and that she had kept her hair from being under the spray of the water. She started to scrub her skin. It wasn't the first time she had been covered in blood, just the first time it wasn't her own, she sobbed a little, but held on to her emotions as best she could.

Once she was dressed and back downstairs Tsukauchi stops her from getting closer to the others in the room.

"Nezu-san, could you please tell me of the events that happened tonight." Tsukauchi said after Izumi had agreed to speak with him in the kitchen.

"I was woken by my phone ringing, it was a special tone just for Rei-san. I didn't hear much of what she was saying but I did catch 'please, park, and Touya'. I knew they were in a bad way, abused people generally recognize each other. I woke dad and then ran to the park where we met them. I took Touya from Rei-san and had Natsuo and Fuyumi climb on my back. We ran here where I then set Touya's broken ankle and wrist before stitching up thirteen cuts of varying lengths and depths. Recovery girl then showed me a scan from some machine she had. Bruised ribs, bruised lower intestine, broken left wrist, right ankle, and nose, concussion, multiple contusions. Recovery girl then taught me how to set a broken nose." Izumi speaks clearly and carefully, she was being recorded and with Tsukauchi's quirk she had to be careful.

"Thank you Nezu-san." Tsukauchi stands and bows to her.

"Wait, please. You need to help them, he will kill them if this continues." Izumi begs, she can feel tears running down her cheeks again, she can't help herself, can't stop herself anymore. "Please."

Tsukauchi sighs and keeps walking. Izumi doesn't know how long she sits at the table crying before she feels a paw on her knee.

"Dad." Izumi cries harder, she pulls him into her lap and holds him as she cries into his shoulder.

He hums a soft tune for her and just lets her cry on him and hold him tightly as he pats the top of her head.

"Come now, the others need to be settled. Keigo has offered his bed for the children, and I have offered mine to Rei. I have also called the school to let them know that all six of us will not be present tomorrow." Nezu says as he wiggles in her hold, to get free.

She lets him go, and waits a little to stand and follow him, her tears have run dry, but she still feels hollowed out.

[billeyshah]

Enhancing Safety and Productivity with Advanced Material Handling Equipment

In the ever-evolving world of logistics and supply chain management, enhancing safety and productivity is paramount. Advanced material handling equipment plays a crucial role in achieving these objectives, transforming how businesses manage their inventory and streamline operations. As companies strive to improve their efficiency and reduce operational costs, incorporating state-of-the-art material handling solutions has become increasingly important. One such innovation is the portable stretch wrap machine, which offers significant benefits in terms of safety and productivity.

Material Handling Equipment: An Overview

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Boosting Productivity with Innovative Solutions

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Future Trends in Material Handling

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Additionally, the development of sustainable and energy-efficient equipment is becoming increasingly important. Companies are seeking material handling solutions that not only enhance safety and productivity but also align with environmental goals and reduce their carbon footprint.

Conclusion

In conclusion, advanced material handling equipment plays a vital role in enhancing safety and productivity in modern logistics and supply chain operations. The portable stretch wrap machine is a prime example of how innovative technology can improve operational efficiency, reduce manual labor, and enhance safety. By investing in such equipment, businesses can achieve significant gains in both productivity and safety, positioning themselves for long-term success in a competitive market. As technology continues to advance, the potential for even greater improvements in material handling practices will undoubtedly emerge, offering new opportunities for optimization and growth.

[sonashiuae]

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Adaptable Appliance

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Last Few Words

Kitchen errands become less time taking and simple on the off chance that you have the right machines. Sonashi Hand Blender is an optimal item, which makes it simple to finish your jobs in minutes, particularly when you are running low on schedule. The multi-useful machine makes whips, mixes and beats food things with flawlessness

[bechloeislegit]

My Heart Only Beats For You

Written to celebrate Brittany Snow's March 9 birthday. As many of you know from previous postings, my favorite Bella is Chloe Beale. [See A/N at the end for the full prompt].

Beca Mitchell laid on her side with her head in her hand, staring down at her sleeping wife. She was in constant awe that Chloe Beale had agreed to marry her, and four years later, she was more in love with her than ever.

Chloe stirred, and Beca gently reached over and pushed a strand of hair off Chloe's face. Chloe scrunched her nose and swatted at Beca's hand, causing her to laugh.

"Good morning, beautiful," Beca said softly. "Happy Birthday."

"Mmmm," Chloe responded, stretching before opening her eyes and looking up at her wife. "Good morning."

Chloe rolled over and put her arms around Beca, pressing a kiss to her lips. Beca fell into the kiss and rolled the two of them over so Chloe was lying on her back.

"I would love to continue this," Beca said, giving Chloe a quick peck. "But I have to get to the studio."

"But, it's my birthday," Chloe whined, wrapping her arms and legs around Beca to hold in her place.

Beca laughed. "I know, and I promise I'll be home early so we can celebrate."

"Fine," Chloe said, moving her legs but continuing to keep her arms around Beca's back. "But, you owe me some over the top birthday sex later."

"Noted," Beca said. "I'd better get dressed and out of here, so I can come back and fulfill your every birthday wish."

"Lucky me," Chloe said, pulling Beca down to kiss her again. "I think I'll be lazy and stay in bed for a while."

"You deserve it," Beca said, reluctantly moving off Chloe to sit on the edge of the bed. "I'll text you when I know what time I'll be home. Maybe it will be early enough for a late lunch."

"Sounds good," Chloe said, snuggling back under the covers.

Beca stood and kissed Chloe on the forehead. "I'm going to shower."

Beca took her shower and quietly moved about the bedroom as she got dressed. Chloe had fallen back to sleep, and she didn't want to wake her. Beca kissed her wife's forehead and left the bedroom.

Beca made her way to the kitchen and turned on the coffee maker. She grabbed an apple from the counter and bit into it while she waited for her coffee. Once the cup was ready, she fixed it to her liking and poured it into her insulated cup. She grabbed her keys, laptop bag, and wallet and went to the garage.

Beca left the garage and started the forty-minute drive to work.

~ My Heart Only Beats For You ~

Beca had been gone just over two hours when Chloe woke to the sound of her work phone. She squinted at the clock and groaned as she sat up.

Chloe picked up the phone and read the text from the hospital's notification center. She immediately called her best friend, Aubrey, who was on duty today.

"Chloe," Aubrey answered. "I'm guessing you saw the notification."

"Yeah," Chloe said. "I'm off today, can't Dr. Maxwell handle things?"

"Unfortunately, no," Aubrey responded. "This is an all hands on deck situation. There was a multi-car crash on the freeway, and we're expecting an influx of injured. So far, we know there are three severe cases with life-threatening injuries. A female that was speared in the chest by a pipe that flew off the back of a truck is the most critical. She was still trapped as of ten minutes ago. They hope to have her out of the car and transported here in an hour or so. Chloe, the pipe entered her chest close to the heart, but the medics on the scene can't tell how bad it is because they have to move slowly to extricate her. The pipe is currently keeping the bleeding to a minimum. We have no idea what we'll find once she gets here. You're the best around, and we need you."

Chloe let out a sigh. "Okay. I'll be there in an hour."

"Thanks, Chloe," Aubrey said. "Be careful."

Chloe ended the call and dropped the phone on the bed. She made her way to the shower.

~ My Heart Only Beats For You ~

Dr. Stacie Conrad stood outside the emergency room doors waiting with other doctors and nurses for the first wave of patients from the accident.

"Do we know anything about how many patients we can expect?" Stacie asked Dr. Morgan.

"No," Dr. Morgan responded. "This first wave will be those with minor, non-life-threatening injuries. We have three that are said to be very serious. Dr. Beale is on her way to handle what we believe to be the most critical patient; she's got a pipe lodged in her chest close to her heart. The other two will be seen by myself and Dr. Swanson. Dr. Conrad, I'll need you to manage the ER as victims come in. Keep the trauma rooms open for the three most critical. And put ORs one, two, and three, on standby for them."

"Yes, sir," Stacie said.

"What did I miss?" Aubrey asked as she rushed out and stood next to Stacie.

Stacie filled Aubrey in as the first ambulance arrived. Things got busy fast as one ambulance dropped off patients and quickly restocked and left to return to the scene.

"What do we have?" Stacie asked as the EMTs brought in a patient.

The EMT spit off vitals and known injuries.

"Okay," Stacie said. "Bed 2. Dr. Nixon, this one's yours."

Dr. Nixon followed the gurney to Bed 2 and proceeded to oversee the patient being moved to the bed. The EMT's quickly removed the stretcher and rushed out.

The emergency room was orderly chaos as doctors and nurses rushed to take care of every patient that came through the doors. Stacie checked the board and looked around.

All patients, except for the one that sounded the most critical, had been received at the hospital.

"So far, so good," she thought.

"Dr. Conrad," a nurse called out. "Dr. Beale's patient is on her way. ETA is five minutes."

"Got it," Stacie said. "Brey!"

"Yeah," Aubrey called out.

"Chloe's patient should be here in five minutes."

"Okay," Aubrey said. "I'll take her until Chloe gets here."

"I'm putting her in Trauma 1," Stacie said.

"Got it," Aubrey said and ran to change her gown as she called out, "Jessica! Ashley! You're with me."

The two interns, as well as two nurses, followed quickly behind Aubrey as Aubrey spit off instruction.

"Jessica, find a portable x-ray machine and bring it here. Watch over it with your life and have it at the ready when I call for it."

"Yes, Dr. Posen," Jessica said, running to do as Aubrey ordered.

"Ashley, make sure there's an ultrasound machine available. I'm sure Dr. Beale will want it."

"On it, Dr. Posen," Ashley called out as she ran out of the trauma room.

The nurses began setting up trays and turning on the equipment. Aubrey watched over them and helped set things up.

"Brey," Stacie said from the door of the trauma room. "She's here."

"Showtime, ladies," Aubrey said as the gurney was wheeled in.

Aubrey quickly assessed the patient and knew they would have to manage somehow to move her from the gurney to the table.

The woman was on her right side with part of the pipe still sticking out of her chest. The pipe was tied and taped down to reduce any jarring. The pipe had been cut down so that only an inch was sticking out of her back. The front had about three inches showing.

Her body was strapped down to keep her from moving. Her head was propped up to relieve some of the pressure on her back and chest.

She had a bandage covering the left side of her face and her hair was matted with blood.

"I have the portable x-ray," Jessica said from the other door to the trauma room.

"I need all hands here to move her to the table," Aubrey said, looking at the EMTs. "You, too, Jessica."

The EMTs moved the gurney as close to the bed as they could. Jessica and Aubrey stood on one side and reached across the exam table to grab the sheet under the patient.

The two EMTs stood on the other side, ready to help lift and get the patient on the table.

"On my three count," Aubrey said, causing everyone to tense at the ready. "One. Two. Three."

Everyone moved slowly and in sync. The EMTs immediately removed the gurney.

The nurses helped remove the tape from around the pole. One of them removed the patient's shirt, and Aubrey began checking the patient's back. She sighed and shook her head.

"This is bad," Aubrey muttered. They needed Chloe.

"Stacie, call Chloe and tell her the patient is here," Aubrey shouted out. "Ask her how far out she is."

"Got it," Stacie said and ran to a phone in the emergency room.

"Hello," Chloe's voice came over the phone.

"Chloe, it's Stacie," Stacie said. "The patient Brey told you about is here. She's taking the lead until you get here. She also wants to know how much longer you'll be."

"I'm stuck in some traffic but should be there in about twenty minutes," Chloe responded. "What do we know so far?"

"Brey's checking her out, but it looks bad Chloe," Stacie said. "They had to cut the pipe to get her out of the car. There's no telling what additional damage that may have caused."

"The pipe is still in her?" Chloe asked.

"Yes," Stacie responded. "It was keeping the bleeding down, and they figured we would want some control over things when the pipe was removed. She also has a laceration on her left cheek. We can take care of that by the time you get here."

"Okay," Chloe said. "Um, tell Brey to get chest x-rays and also have the ultrasound ready when I get there. I'll want to check her heart so I can assess how bad the bleeding is."

"Got it," Stacie said. "See you in a few."

Stacie ended the call and ran to tell Aubrey what Chloe had said.

"Jessica, bring in the portable x-ray," Aubrey said. "Ashley? Is Ashley-"

"Right here, doctor," Ashley called out.

"Which OR is open?" Aubrey asked.

"OR 1," Ashley responded.

"Please go make sure it's ready for us," Aubrey instructed.

"Yes, doctor," Ashley said and rushed out of the room.

"Her vitals are weak but steady," Stacie said, checking the monitors. "Do you need me on this?"

"No, we're good," Aubrey said. "But stay close."

Stacie nodded and left the trauma room.

Jessica walked in with the portable x-ray, and Aubrey directed her to get pics from both the front and back. Jessica did as instructed and moved the machine to x-ray the chest first. She pushed the patient's hair from her face and furrowed her brow. She gently moved the woman's head to get a better look at her.

"Dr. Posen?" Jessica said, her face ashen.

"What?" Aubrey snapped.

"This is Dr. Beale's wife," Jessica said.

Everyone in the room froze.

"What?" Aubrey cried out and rushed around to look at the patient. She felt as if her heart had stopped when she saw that the woman on the table was indeed Beca Mitchell. "Oh, my God! Stacie! Stacie, get in here!"

Stacie came running back into the room. "What is it?"

Aubrey motioned Stacie over to where she stood. "It's Beca."

"Oh, fuck," Stacie said, looking down into Beca's face. "We have to tell Chloe."

Jessica gently laid Beca's head back on the pillow.

"No!" Aubrey yelled. "We can't. Not yet. Chloe is the only one who can help Beca. We have to figure out a way to have Chloe operate without letting her know it's Beca."

"Brey, we can't do that," Stacie said. "We have to tell her."

"I have an idea," Aubrey said. "Get Dr. Morgan in her stat."

Stacie ran out of the room as Aubrey turned to order Jessica to get the x-rays done.

Jessica did as ordered. The x-rays were completed as Dr. Morgan came into the room.

Aubrey quickly filled him in on what was going on. "If we can get Beca prepped and into the operating room, we can have Chloe do what needs to be done without her knowing it's Beca."

"This is highly unusual," Dr. Morgan stated.

"I know, it's not ideal," Aubrey said. "But we don't have time to find another heart/trauma surgeon. Chloe is the best at what she does and is the only chance Beca has of surviving this. I believe it's the only way."

Dr. Morgan looked torn. He let out a heavy sigh and said, "Do it."

Aubrey went into hyper-drive and told Jessica to have Beca wheeled to OR 1. She told Stacie to intercept Chloe and let her know that her patient was being prepped. She also told her to give Chloe an update on what they had done so far to provide them with a few extra minutes to get everything ready.

"I hope you know what you're doing," Stacie said.

"So do I," Aubrey muttered as she rushed off to get everything ready in the operating room.

~ My Heart Only Beats For You ~

Aubrey started barking orders to the OR team. Beca was placed facing away from the scrub area so that Chloe would approach Beca from the back. Beca's hair was bunched up and tucked under a surgical cap.

Aubrey quickly scrubbed in and rushed into the OR. A nurse helped Aubrey with her gown and gloves.

Aubrey looked all around the table Beca was laid out on. She went to her head and asked Jessica to clean and stitch the laceration.

It took a few minutes, and when Jessica was done, Aubrey had her put a large gauze bandage over it to cover most of Beca's face.

Aubrey and a nurse set up the bypass machine. Once everything was in place, Aubrey noticed Chloe scrubbing in.

"I think we're okay," Aubrey said to no one in particular.

"I need to see the x-rays," Chloe said as soon as she entered the OR.

A nurse quickly helped with Chloe's gown and gloves. Another nurse stuck the x-rays onto the viewing light, and Chloe examined them carefully.

"Is she completely under?" Chloe asked.

"Yes," Aubrey responded.

"Where's the ultrasound?"

"Here, doctor," Ashley said, her voice quivering a bit.

Aubrey gave her a harsh glare.

"Do we have someone who can help with getting that pipe out of her chest?"

"We have two of the interns standing by," Aubrey said. "They're just waiting for your instructions."

"Okay," Chloe said, positioning herself at the table behind Beca's back. "Let's do this. Ashley, can you guide the wand over and around the pipe from your side?"

"Yes, doctor," Ashley said.

Ashley slowly worked the wand around the pipe, and Chloe kept her eyes on the machine.

"Stop," Chloe said, and Ashley immediately complied. "Shit."

"What's wrong?" Aubrey asked.

"The heart looks stable, but it looks like the pipe nicked an artery in her chest," Chloe said. "There's a large pocket of blood around her heart. We need to move fast, or we're going to lose her. Get those interns in here. The first thing we need to do is get that pipe out. It's going to take perfect timing, and we'll have to work quickly to control the bleeding."

Two interns came through the door and stood on the opposite side of the operating table from Chloe.

Chloe took a deep breath. "I'm going to need you to pull on this pipe slowly and stop as soon as I tell you. You'll have to hold onto the pipe while I work on her from behind. Understood?"

"Yes, doctor," the interns say together.

"I'll stay here and help keep an eye on things from this side," Aubrey said.

"Thanks, Brey," Chloe said. "Okay. You ready, Jessica?"

"Ready," Jessica said.

"Ashley?"

"Ready, Dr. Beale."

"The next few minutes are going to be crucial," Chloe said, looking around at everyone in the room. "My orders are going to need to be followed immediately. Does everyone understand?"

There were nods and "yes, doctor."

"Here we go," Chloe said and looked at the interns. "You two start pulling straight toward you until I say stop."

The interns both held onto the pipe and slowly pulled. Chloe bent over and watched as the pipe started moving back into Beca's body.

"Stop," Chloe said. "Lap bandages."

The OR nurse started handing Chloe the bandages. Chloe wiped the blood from around the wound.

"How are her vitals?" Chloe called out.

The anesthesiologist rattled off Beca's vitals.

"Good, good," Chloe mumbled. "Start pulling again."

Chloe would have the interns stop pulling so she could wipe the blood from around the wound. The pipe had been pulled enough to have the end no longer visible.

Chloe placed a surgical bandage over the wound on Beca's back to keep the bleeding to a minimum.

Removing the pipe was painstakingly slow, but Chloe didn't want to risk tearing the heart or causing any more unwanted bleeding.

Aubrey took over, cleaning the blood from the wound on the chest as the pipe was removed. Chloe wanted to move to assist, but there was no more room on the other side of the table. She stood rigid as she looked over the patient's side to watch as the last of the pipe was pulled free.

"It's free," Aubrey finally called out.

Chloe placed several bandages on the wound and applied pressure.

"Turn her over so I can open her chest," Chloe said.

Aubrey and one of the interns slowly turned Beca onto her back, as Chloe continued to apply pressure to the wound.

Once Beca was lying on her back, Chloe removed the bandages and held out her hand, calling out, "Scalpel."

The surgery had begun. Chloe was deep into Beca's chest, checking to ensure there weren't any other injuries to the heart. The nicked artery was close to the heart and was going to take some time to repair.

"Let's get the bypass machine going," Chloe ordered.

Chloe and Aubrey worked together to get the bypass machine connected and working.

"How am I so privileged to have the great Dr. Posen assisting today?" Chloe asked while they waited for the machine to fully take over the work of keeping Beca's heart alive.

"Just lucky, I guess," Aubrey responded.

Chloe smiled from behind her surgical mask. "How are we doing?"

Aubrey checked the monitors and said, "You're good to go."

Chloe nodded and asked for clean gloves. Once they were on, she started working on repairing the nick near Beca's heart. It took longer than Chloe would have liked, but she was able to repair the tear.

"Dr. Smith," Chloe said. "There appears to be some blood coming from somewhere around the heart. How do we find where it's coming from."

"Um," Jessica said. "We need to use our fingers to feel for any anomalies around the heart."

"Very good," Chloe said as she did what Jessica had told her. "I found it."

Chloe was able to close off the bleed. She and Aubrey both looked to make sure there was no more bleeding.

"How long has she been on bypass?" Chloe asked.

"Seventy-eight minutes," the nurse responded.

"Let's turn off the bypass," Chloe said.

The nurse did as instructed, and all eyes were on Beca's heart; watching to see signs it was able to beat on its own. Suddenly, the monitors were beeping, and everyone started moving.

Chloe reached into Beca's chest and put her hand around Beca's heart.

"Starting pulmonary compressions," Chloe said. "Get the paddles ready."

Chloe gently squeezed the heart.

"Come on, come on," Chloe muttered. "Beat, dammit!"

Aubrey stood, watching as Chloe tried to get Beca's heart beating. Knowing it was Beca on the table brought tears to Aubrey's eyes. She immediately blinked them away. She couldn't break down in front of Chloe. Not yet.

The heart monitor beeped once. Chloe continued to massage the heart gently. The monitor beeped again, then straight-lined.

"Paddles," Chloe called out.

The nurse handed Chloe the heart paddles, and Chloe placed them inside Beca's chest, one on each side of the heart. Chloe pressed the button, and the heart jumped.

"Still nothing," was called out.

"Shit," Chloe said, placing the paddles once again inside Beca's chest. She pressed the button, and the monitor beeped.

Chloe waited and watched the monitor. The beeping was very slow. Chloe handed the paddles back to the nurse and put her hand inside Beca's chest and began to massage her heart again gently.

After a few squeezes, the heart monitor returned to a slow, steady rhythm. Chloe let out a sigh and removed her hand from Beca's chest.

"She's back," Aubrey said with a smile. "The heart is doing its job. Nice going, Dr. Beale."

"Yeah," Chloe said. "Let's finish her up."

~ My Heart Only Beats For You ~

Chloe gave final instructions to have the patient moved to the cardiac ICU. She and Aubrey walked out of the ER, exhausted.

Chloe pulled her surgical gown and mask and tossed them in the bin. She then took off her cap, using the cap to wipe the sweat around her hairline before tossing it in the bin as well.

"I need to call Beca," Chloe said. "She was supposed to come home early so we could celebrate my birthday.

"I need to tell you something," Aubrey said as she watched Chloe open her locker and pull out her phone.

"What is it?" Chloe asked as she looked down at her phone with her brows furrowed. "Huh, no messages from Beca. That's weird."

"Beca was involved in the accident this morning," Aubrey said quickly.

"What?" Chloe asked, standing rigid as she looked at Aubrey. "Is she here in the hospital?"

"Yes, she is. She's, uh, she was the woman you just worked on," Aubrey replied.

The blood drained from Chloe's face, and her breath hitched.

"What?"

"I'm sorry, Chloe. You were the only one who could help her. It was my idea not to tell you, so if you want to yell at someone, yell at me."

Chloe couldn't breathe. "Oh, my God," she whispered, trying to take a breath.

Aubrey pulled Chloe into her arms. "Take a deep breath, Chloe. Let it out."

Chloe did as Aubrey instructed, and Aubrey watched her closely.

"I need to get to Beca," Chloe said and pushed Aubrey away.

Aubrey grabbed Chloe again. "Not until you calm down."

"I am calm," Chloe said, her eyes wide and a bit panicked. "Don't I look calm to you?"

"No, you don't," Aubrey said. She sighed and added, "Please, Chloe. Beca still needs Dr. Beale. You can be Mrs. Mitchell once we check on her, and we know she's out of the woods."

Chloe took in a deep breath and let it out. She stood there for a minute and got herself under control.

"You're right," Chloe said, looking more like the no-nonsense Dr. Beale everyone was used to seeing. "I'm fine now, and I'm going to go check on her."

"Is it alright if I come with you?" Aubrey asked with tears in her eyes.

Chloe smiled at her. "Of course. But don't think I'm not done yelling at you yet."

"Duly noted," Aubrey said, smiling as she wiped the tears from her eyes. "Shall we go, Dr. Beale?"

~ My Heart Only Beats For You ~

Three days later, Chloe was sitting at Beca's bedside.

"You should go home," Stacie said from the doorway. "Dr. Maxwell is taking good care of Beca."

"I know," Chloe said. "I've been reading her chart."

"Of course, you have," Stacie said with a laugh. "You should still go home. Take a shower, change your clothes, eat something that isn't from the hospital cafeteria, but mainly get some rest. It's been three days, and you haven't left her side. We get it; you love her."

Stacie gave Chloe a cheeky smile and wink.

Chloe smiled. "I do, I really do."

"Brey and I are both on duty tonight," Stacie said. "If anything happens, we'll call you immediately."

Chloe sat up in her chair and stretched her back. She reached over and gently stroked Beca's cheek.

"I can't leave her," Chloe said.

"Chloe," Stacie said, walking over to stand next to Chloe. "Beca would tell you the same thing. Go home. If you want, Brey or I will get someone to cover for us and go with you."

Chloe looked at Beca and then at Stacie. She let out a breath.

"Please, Chloe," Stacie said. "We're starting to worry about you. Seriously. Just go home for a few hours, and then you can come back."

"Maybe you're right," Chloe said. "Do you think Brey can find someone to cover for her? I'm not done yelling at her, and it would be much easier to do at home."

Stacie laughed and said, "I'll make sure she can leave with you."

"Okay," Chloe said. "Tell Brey she has an hour or else I'm staying."

"Yes, ma'am," Stacie said and left the room.

~ My Heart Only Beats For You ~

Two hours later, Chloe and Aubrey were sitting on Chloe's couch.

"I do understand why you did it, Brey," Chloe said. "And, I'm not mad about it anymore. I promise."

"I'm glad," Aubrey said. "And, for the record, I would do it again without thinking twice about it. I knew there was only one person who could pull off what you did."

"Thanks, Brey," Chloe said, yawning. "I'm glad I didn't know Beca was hurt. If someone else had come in with her injuries, I would have been worried about Beca instead of concentrating on what I had to do for them."

Chloe yawned again, and Aubrey smiled.

"Go get some sleep," Aubrey said. "Stacie is supposed to call if anything changes with Beca."

"Thanks, Brey," Chloe said as she slowly stood and stretched. "And thanks for dinner."

"Good night, Chloe," Aubrey said.

Chloe made her way to her bedroom and fell into bed. She pulled Beca's pillow to her and held it tight against her chest. She was asleep in seconds.

Chloe woke the next morning in the same position she had fallen asleep. She stretched and checked the time.

Chloe sat straight up in bed when she heard someone coming down the hall outside her room.

"Beca?" Chloe called out.

"Sorry," Aubrey said, standing in the doorway, holding up a cup. "I was making you some tea. Why don't you shower and get dressed? We can go to the hospital when you're ready."

"Right," Chloe said, wiping her hands down her face.

An hour later, Chloe and Aubrey were making their way into the hospital when Aubrey's phone rang.

"Hey, Stacie," Aubrey answered. "Chloe and I are on our way up to Beca's room."

"Hurry up," Stacie said excitedly. "Beca is starting to come around."

"We'll be right there," Aubrey said, ending the call. She grabbed Chloe's wrist and started speed walking to the elevators. "Beca's waking up."

Chloe rushed into Beca's room to find Dr. Maxwell chuckling.

"She's a little loopy from the pain medicine," Stacie whispered to Chloe.

"Oh," Chloe said. "May I talk to her, Dr. Maxwell?"

"Please," Dr. Maxwell.

"Miss Mitchell," Chloe said, causing Beca to turn her head toward her. "I'm Dr. Beale, and I'm the one who operated on you. Do you recall what happened?"

"Dr. Beale?" Beca mumbled. "You're hot."

"Thank you," Chloe said, smiling.

"I'm, uh, I," Beca said, frowning. "I hurt. My chest."

"Adjust her morphine," Dr. Maxwell told the nurse standing next to him.

The nurse did, and Chloe started talking to Beca.

"You're going to be sore for a while," Chloe said. "I need you to listen to me so I can tell you about your injury."

Chloe sat in the chair next to Beca's bed. She slowly told Beca everything that had happened three days before. Chloe was sure that Beca wasn't taking in anything she was telling her, but she felt she needed to tell Beca everything anyway.

Beca's eyes were drooping, and she kept nodding off but waking back up a few seconds later. Chloe knew she needed to rest, so she held Beca's hand.

"I love you," Chloe whispered as she brushed Beca's hair back from her forehead.

"I love-" Beca started to say and fell asleep.

"This is good," Dr. Maxwell said. "She needs to rest so she can heal. We'll slowly take her off the morphine, and you can try and talk to her again when she's more aware."

"Thank you, Dr. Maxwell," Chloe said.

Dr. Maxwell left, and Aubrey and Stacie stood by Beca's bed.

"I have another hour on shift, and then I'll be back to see how Beca's doing," Stacie said, kissing Aubrey before she left.

"She's got a long road ahead of her," Aubrey said

"I know," Chloe said and sighed. "I'm just glad she's still here."

"Me, too," Aubrey said.

~ My Heart Only Beats For You ~

One year later, Beca woke to Chloe gently placing soft kisses down the scar on her chest.

"Good morning," Beca mumbled, causing Chloe to look up at her.

"Good morning," Chloe said, smiling as she laid her head on Beca's chest.

"I love you," Beca said.

"I love you, too," Chloe repeated back.

"It's your birthday, so what do you want to do today?" Beca asked.

"Can we just lay here for a while?" Chloe asked. "I just want to hold you."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Beca said, pulling Chloe closer to her.

Chloe snuggled her forehead into Beca's neck and retraced Beca's scar.

"Why do you do that?" Beca asked, looking down to watch Chloe's fingers. "It's not very attractive."

"I think it's beautiful," Chloe said. "It's a reminder that you're still here."

Beca pulled back to look down at Chloe. "I love you, too."

"Do you know what my favorite sound in the world is?"

"Me telling you I love you?" Beca asked, running her hand down Chloe's back.

"I like hearing that a lot," Chloe said. Beca could feel Chloe smiling against her chest. "But it's not my favorite sound."

"Okay, so what is your favorite sound in the world?"

"The sound of your heart beating," Chloe said softly. "And I thank God every day that I still get to hear it."

"You know my heart only beats for you," Beca said.

"That was cheesy, Mrs. Mitchell," Chloe said, pulling back to look at Beca.

"Maybe it was, Mrs. Mitchell," Beca said. "It doesn't make it any less true."

"I love you, you cheeseball," Chloe said, leaning up as Beca leaned down to kiss her.

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A/N: This prompt was originally submitted for Valentine's Day 2020, but I already had all that I needed and said that I would instead use it for my annual Brittany Snow birthday BeChloe story. It's late, but I hope you enjoy it.

Full prompt from Tumblr User Anonymous: It's Valentines Day (changed to Chloe's birthday), Dr. Chloe Beale should be holding flowers and heart-shaped chocolates to celebrate the occasion. Instead, she finds herself literally holding her wife's heart in her hands, willing it to beat again as she performs the only surgery of her career that her whole world depends on. Beca Mitchell never thought she would ever end up on her wife's operating table. Guess the universe had other plans.

A/N: I am not a doctor or a surgeon. I did some research on heart surgery and used some of what I learned, interspersed with things that sounded good, to write the surgery portion of the story.

[and-it-freezes-me]

Schemes Of Mice - Part 1

Schemes Of Mice is the first part of the What Happened In Lichmai series.

Title is from the poem To A Mouse by Robert Burns.

{Part 2} {Part 3}

Summary: Virgil Insmyre’s carefully planned road trip takes an unexpected turn for the worse, and he falls back on getting help from a strange pair of travellers.

Content: car trouble, hitchhiking, very loud music

Word count: 7,007

It was dark.

It was always dark. The light of the moon never made it down here, the stars never shone across his face.

It was dark, and it had been dark for longer than he wished to know.

-

Just because he didn’t like it when plans went wrong didn’t mean that it was the end of the world.

Those were the words that Virgil repeated to himself as the needle on the fuel gauge dipped ever so slowly below the red line, and still no petrol station came into sight.

He had thought he had planned this whole trip out down to the last detail. It was supposed to be easy: leave his hometown with his camera and the other essential things he couldn’t be without in his car, and have everything else sent by post to meet him when he arrived on the other side of the country to start his new life. He had spent hours upon hours planning the route he would take, carefully avoiding any cities with higher-than-average crime rates, selecting a few choice parks and monuments that he had always wanted to visit and photograph and sketching his route around that. He had checked the laws for every state he needed to drive through and made sure his old, navy blue car had been checked over at the garage no less than three times before he had left. Virgil had packed enough bottles of water to survive getting caught in a snowstorm and having to stay put for up to a week; he had packed enough dried food to sustain him just as long in an emergency; he had packed not only his weighted blanket but also a fluffy one he had impulse bought a few months back, a patchwork one his grandmother had made him when he was seven, and his sleeping bag, just in case he had to spend the night in the car. None of these things should be necessary, though, because he had made sure to check the weather forecasts for every town along his route, made sure that there were diners and motels and hotels and restaurants everywhere he planned to stop for the night.

He had made sure that he had his route entered not only into the GPS he had bought for the sole purpose of not getting lost when he had to go slightly outside of his comfort zone to get specific photos, but also into his phone, and drawn it out across several maps with a full notebook of times and directions. He had scheduled in an hour’s break for every four he spent driving to stretch his legs.

And he had definitely scheduled in petrol stations.

They were pencilled in at regular, carefully calculated intervals: he should never have gotten below three-quarters full.

And now he was coasting to a stop at the side of a dark road, the screen of his GPS filled with static.

“Stupid, overpriced, worthless junk,” he snarled, engaging the handbrake and tossing the useless system on top of the bag on the passenger seat. His phone was in the drinks holder, next to a very large, very empty coffee cup, but when he grabbed it to call… Anyone, really, he found that he had no signal. 

Virgil very nearly punched his steering wheel in frustration, then reminded himself that he still had another two days of driving to do and that the first aid kit in his glovebox, whilst expansive, would not magically fix his fingers when he inevitably broke them. Instead, he shook his phone roughly, hoping that by some miracle that would help it pick up a network.

It didn’t.

Instead, it completely.

“Fuck,” he commented eloquently. That was okay, though. Virgil made certain never to travel without a portable charger, and he made sure it was fully charged before he left whichever motel he stayed at in the mornings. Pulling it out of the top of the bag beside him, he plugged his phone into it and closed his eyes slowly.

He would count to five, open his eyes, wait for his phone to charge a little, and then call the nearest breakdown service he could.

One. Two. Deep breath in. Three, four, deep breath out. Five.

“Fuck!” The portable charger was out of juice - and Virgil had been certain he had charged it that morning. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck!”

Okay, okay. This wasn’t the end of the world. The world wasn’t ending, he was just going to have to…

Okay, maybe it was the end of the world.

Virgil took another deep breath, and then another, and then a fourth just to make sure he still could. Reaching into his bag, he rooted around until he found his notebook and a pen, and flipped through to an empty page.

“Okay, okay… What’s happening, what’ve I got…” He muttered.

The problem, Virgil wrote.

Out of petrol on side of unfamiliar road at night 8pm

Should have passed petrol station > 1 hour ago - didn’t

Should be an hour from next motel

GPS broken + phone w/out battery or signal

Can’t figure out position on map

Individually, any of these seemed bad. Put together, Virgil was pretty sure he was going to get murdered by a roving serial killer. He jerked his hand through his purple bangs, then lowered his pen back to the paper.

Inventory

My camera set

Useless phone, map, GPS, laptop

Enough water + dried food for the week

Six clean changes of clothes

Two dirty changes of clothes

Three blankets + sleeping bag

Misc. house items including coffee machine + cactus

Okay, so he wouldn’t starve to death. Or freeze, especially given that the weather was supposed to be clement at the very least.

Solutions

Backtrack until civilisation found + get help

Haven’t seen a building in nearly 2hrs, would take all night

Walk along road until civilisation found + get help

Don’t know how long that’ll take

Don’t know what the road does / could get lost

Night - dangerous, unfamiliar place

He definitely didn’t want to be wandering around at night.

Wait until morning + follow road + get help

Means staying in car overnight

Less likely to get lost/murdered inside car than outside

It looked as though he was going to be sleeping in the car tonight. Chewing thoughtfully at the end of his pen, Virgil added one more bullet to his list.

Somebody might drive past + could help

Hitchhiking, of course, was a spectacularly horrible idea, and there was no way Virgil was going to attempt anything remotely like that - not with his phone out of action, and no friends to know where he was or report him missing, and in a strange place.

Virgil would really rather he didn’t get murdered today. Or any day, really. Getting brutally murdered was not how he would choose to go.

Hopefully, if somebody passed, they would be more inclined to help him than kill him. If he were really lucky, they might be the kind of person to carry extra petrol (why didn’t he do that? He should start doing that), or at least be willing to give him some of theirs if he paid them back. Maybe they could tell him where he was - or maybe they’d have a spare portable charger that he could buy off of them.

Virgil tried to ignore the fact that in the time that he had been driving down this long, seemingly unending road, he hadn’t seen a single other vehicle. There was no point in working himself up to a panic attack, not when he had a clear course of action now.

The fact that that course of action was to do nothing was beside the point.

Groaning, Virgil stretched his arms above his head and heard a series of pops as his back flexed (driving non-stop for almost a week wasn��t exactly doing him many favours, even with the breaks he had scheduled in). As he reached for the bag on the seat behind him, where he had stored a few of the water bottles and rations along with his blankets and sleeping bag, a wide yawn stretched his jaw. If there was a silver lining to this whole mess of a situation, it was the fact that he was being forced to get some rest now.

Well, what passed for rest. Virgil doubted he would sleep particularly soundly, even with his weighted blanket wrapped around his shoulders and his seat reclined back as far as it would go. Aside from the discomfort and the nagging worry that he was going to wake up to find a knife in his guts and somebody making off with his camera (both of which were good reasons to sleep fitfully), he needed to stay at least awake enough to be aware of any cars passing.

He could get out, could stand by the side of the road or sit on the bonnet. He’d be more awake that way, more aware, more responsive if anybody did drive past - but he’d also be more vulnerable to passing murderers and (he was reminded by a faint howl in the distance) whatever predators roamed the area.

Turning off the lights (he didn’t want to waste any more of the car’s battery than he already had), Virgil shifted briefly before turning on his side so that he was facing out of the car’s window, watching the road for headlights.

The clouds covering the sky shifted, and stars twinkled down at the quiet stretch of countryside. The moon rose.

It was peaceful. It could almost be considered pretty, if he weren’t one-hundred-percent aware that he was going to have to spend hours hiking tomorrow to find help.

The glow-in-the-dark hands of Virgil’s watch moved slowly around its face, and seconds dripped into minutes dripped into hours.

At least he was warm. At least he wasn’t hungry, at least he was free and safe and alone.

This would push his schedule back by at least a day, of course - but he should still arrive at his new flat sixteen days before his first day at his new job. That would give him plenty of time to get used to his surroundings, to make the walk between apartment and office several times over to make sure he wouldn’t get lost on the way, and to find a good place to get coffee when he didn’t want to be completely isolated.

Virgil still couldn’t quite believe that he had landed an entry-level position at Mary-Lee, Lee, and Co.. They were a fashion agency, one of the big ones, and there was no way they should have been looking at a twenty-year-old, only a year out of highschool (he had been held back a year before anyone had realised that his reluctance to participate in English classes had been dyslexia rather than laziness), with only a year’s crash-course in semi-professional photography to his name.

Of course, it wasn’t as though he wouldn’t get more training on the job - a lot more training - and he would probably be staying on the lowest rung on the company ladder for a very long time.

Virgil was thrilled.

It was the chance to be the one in charge of his own life, a chance to do what he loved rather than serving popcorn in a tacky movie theatre to pay for his photography course and his stupidly high rent, a chance to be free, a chance to disappear.

-

Virgil was jerked out of a light doze by what could only be described as the sound one would get if they gave a cat a chainsaw and told it to sing while it cut down a lamppost.

It was faint at first, faint enough that he wasn’t sure what had woken him. Then the small plastic spider he had taped to his dashboard started bobbing, and Virgil realised that the horrific noise must be something approaching. A car? Maybe? A car with the most horrible taste in music imaginable, and willing to play it at a stupid volume in the middle of - what time was it? He glanced at his watch - at two in the morning.

Well, if whoever it was was happy to announce their presence for miles around, they were probably going to be easy to track. He scribbled trying to attract attention of loud music people in his notebook (he was tired, it was the best he could come up with in a rush) and scrambled out of the car, turning on the headlights as he did. Anything to be seen, right? If he could just borrow somebody’s phone…

By the time the minivan was close enough to see, Virgil wanted to put his fingers in his ears: he had to ask how whoever was driving it wasn’t deaf already, or how they hadn’t been arrested yet. Instead, he took another long breath before sticking out an arm and waving it frantically, hoping that would be enough to get the driver’s attention.

It was.

There was a horrific screech that felt akin to a metal spike being driven into his brain, and Virgil almost crawled back into his car when the man driving leaned out of the open window to grin at him. His smile was so wide it seemed to split his face open like something out of a horror movie. There was a streak of white in his otherwise brown curls, he was waving at Virgil with both hands (one of which had a bandage wrapped around the palm, both of which looked smudgy with… ink?), and his wide eyes made him look ever so slightly unhinged. He had to be wearing contact lenses, because his irises were the kind of bright, acidic green that typically comes in bottles marked with skulls and crossbones. In cartoons.

“HEY!”

He had to shout to be heard over the ‘music’ that was still pulsing from the car and flattening all of the plants for miles around, and even then Virgil probably wouldn’t have figured out what he had said if he hadn’t been looking directly at him.

This was a bad idea. He was going to get murdered by a guy that probably had pure caffeine running through his veins and bats in his belfry. Lifting one hand in a weak surrendering motion, Virgil groped around behind him for the handle to let himself back into the car.

“HEY! ARE YOU IN TROUBLE? CAN WE HELP AT-” The ‘music’ cut off suddenly, and the guy glanced briefly at whoever was in the car with him before turning back to Virgil. “All?”

The sudden silence made Virgil’s ears ring, and the hand that had been waving awkwardly moved to rub the back of his head, where a dull throbbing had started up. “Uh… No. You know what? It’s cool, I’m all fine here, I’m just gonna…”

“Did your car break down?” The guy was still shouting. It was amazing that he could hear anything, really - or maybe he couldn’t, given how he had just ignored Virgil’s questions. “I know about cars! Anything I can help with!”

Then Virgil blinked, and the guy was standing right next to him, offering him his bandaged hand to shake. He seemed to be constantly in motion, shifting from foot to foot, picking at a scab on his neck with his other hand, tapping his fingers against his hip. If it hadn’t been for the constant motion and the overly wide cartoon eyes, he would have looked almost normal in a slightly tatty band t-shirt and a pair of ripped jeans - oh, maybe not. He was wearing slippers. Not just any slippers, either: they were fluffy, and when Virgil squinted at them he realised that they had long ears.

Wild-Eyes-Guy must have noticed him looking. “Vampire bunny slippers! Do you like them? I made them myself!”

“... What?” Maybe he was dreaming right now. That was the only sensible explanation for this. Virgil’s hand had found the car door, but for some reason he hadn’t scrambled back inside just yet - and he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why.

“Vampire bunny slippers! Made them! What do you think?!” The guy repeated, and Virgil blinked again.

“Uh…”

“Roman, what are you doing to this poor kid?” A second guy had gotten out of the van, an eye-mask pushed into his hair like an alice-band. He was wearing slacks, a sweater, and (thankfully) regular trainers on his feet. He seemed a little less… Manic, than Wild-Eyes-Guy (Roman?) - although maybe that was because he had only just woken up, if the sleep mask and the way he was rubbing his eyes was any indication.

They both looked to be no more than a few years older than Virgil, but being called a kid seemed to be the least of his issues right now.

“He was asking about my slippers! I told you they’d be popular!” Virgil had no idea what he was supposed to say to that. His absolute bewilderment must have shown on his face, because the calmer guy moved closer and rested a hand on Wild-Eyes-Guy/Roman’s shoulder. Roman seemed to calm down a little. He stopped bouncing, at least.

“Are you sure about that one? He looks terrified.” There was a dry note in Calm-Guy’s voice - and Virgil suddenly noticed that his eyes were yellow as butter. Acidic butter. Was there some kind of convention for people with a thing for weird contact lenses?

Had he been sleeping in contact lenses? Virgil’s foster brother had worn contact lenses sometimes, and Virgil was pretty sure that you weren’t supposed to sleep in them.

“He flagged us down! Why would he be terrified?”

There was silence for a second, Virgil still trying to figure out whether he was about to be murdered by a guy in vampire rabbit slippers and his sleepy accomplice. Calm-Guy seemed to be waiting for Roman to answer that question himself; after a second, Roman’s shoulders slumped and his smile dropped back to regular proportions, becoming almost sheepish.

“It’s super late and you’re alone on an empty road, of course you’re terrified!” At least he had stopped shouting, but Virgil wished he didn’t sound so excited about that fact. Calm-Guy rolled his eyes, then held out a neatly manicured hand. Virgil shook it. It wasn’t as though there was much else he could do now, right?

“I apologise for my boyfriend, he gets… Energetic, when he drinks coffee. I’m-”

“Hey! I haven’t had any coffee since ereyesterday!”

“Energy drinks, then?”

“Yep.” Roman popped the ‘p’, looking immensely satisfied with himself, then moved over to the hood of Virgil’s car and lifted the bonnet. Without asking. What the hell?

“Uh… What are you…”

“Engine looks fine! Flat tire? No, the tires look fine, the suspension looks fine -” He was under the car now, jabbering away at the greasy machine above him.

Calm-Guy groaned and ran both hands through his hair, but not so roughly that he dislodged the eye mask or ended up looking even remotely ruffled. “As I was saying, I am known as Ethan Anguis -” He pronounced it ‘on-guie’. “- and the delight currently trying to figure out why you’re sitting on the side of the road without asking you is my boyfriend, known as Roman Pulpos. I assume you flagged us down as opposed to us gatecrashing your private camp-out?”

“Uh…” Virgil blinked, then nodded. “I, uh… Ran out of petrol. Was hoping I could… Borrow your phone, or… Something.”

Ethan nodded slowly - and Virgil realised that he didn’t seem to have blinked in the whole time he had been standing before him. No, that couldn’t be right. It was just a trick of the light.

“I’ve got it! You’re out of petrol!” Roman had stood - and if his hands had been grubby before, that was nothing to the grease and grime that now stretched from fingertip to elbow. There was even dirt on his face. Ethan groaned beside him.

“Did it occur to you, dearest, that you could simply have asked him? It would have been far more polite than simply poking around his car…”

“He didn’t seem very talkative.”

A snort left Virgil, and he clapped his hand over his mouth as they both turned to look at him. Then Roman’s face split back into that wide grin, and he came back to stand beside Ethan, who took a pointed step away. “You’re not getting back in the car until you’ve washed some of that off, you know.”

“But it’s my turn to choose the vehicle!”

“Yes! You chose it! But we’re still keeping it clean! Water bottle, cloth, go!” Ethan flapped his hands a few times in a ‘shoo’-ing motion, and Roman rolled his eyes - and his head with them - before stalking around to the passenger side and opening the door. The yellow-eyed man turned his attention back to Virgil, a fond smile on his sharp features. “So, you said you were hoping to…”

“Borrow your phone, yes,” Virgil nodded, eyes snapping back to the man before him rather than the now-shirtless Roman, who seemed to have decided that his t-shirt would work better than a cloth for getting rid of the grease.

Ethan clucked his tongue sympathetically. “You won’t get any signal out here. The nearest town is an hour’s drive away - I’d assume that walking was going to be your next plan if you couldn’t flag us down?”

“Uh… Yeah.” Virgil shifted awkwardly. “Do you… Know the area well?”

“Used to live here!” Called Roman, and Virgil forced himself not to stare at the muscles rippling under the dark skin of his back.

“A long time ago, yes. We return every few years,” Ethan added. “I wouldn’t try walking at night. The landscape gets a little… Treacherous. We can give you a lift if you want - there’s a repair shop in town, you can get someone to drive out and pick up your car tomorrow.”

“I… I really couldn’t.” Virgil shifted from foot to foot. “I’m perfectly fine waiting until morning and walking in. Got plenty of blankets ‘n’ food. I’ll be fine. Thank you for offering, though.”

Ethan blinked - but still not as though he needed to. More as though he was processing the words Virgil had just said, and wanted to show that he was paying attention. Maybe Virgil’s mind was playing tricks on him. It was very late, and he was very tired. “Understandable. I wouldn’t want to push you into anything you’re not comfortable with, so-”

“We’re not gonna kill you, y’know,” Roman added helpfully, and Virgil almost jumped out of his skin because he was suddenly right next to him. Virgil had been so caught up in not staring at him and talking to Ethan instead that he had completely missed his returning to their side - still shirtless, because the world was actively working to make his life difficult. “That would just be rude.”

“Roman! We’re trying not to push the kid into-”

“I’m not that much younger than you, you know.” Yes, because that was the important point to argue just then. Really, it was a miracle Virgil wasn’t already dead in a ditch somewhere, what with his brain constantly seeming to do the opposite of what he wanted it to.

Ethan looked mildly amused. “Really? How old are you, kid?”

“Twenty. And it’s Virgil, not kid.” If they were going to murder him, they probably would have done it by now. Telling them his name wasn’t going to make any difference at this point.

Roman snorted and ran his hand across the top of Virgil’s car, inspecting a large scratch in the paintwork below the rear door. “Virgil? Like virgin?” Virgil winced.

“No, you dick -” Ethan punched his boyfriend lightly on the shoulder, and Roman rubbed a hand over the spot with exaggerated remorse. “- like the poet. And if Virgil doesn’t want a lift from us, we should get going.”

“We could keep him company! It’s gonna be a long night out here on his own - unless you plan on walking, which is a really stupid idea!” There was the soft popping noise of the petrol flap being opened, and then the click of it closing. Then Roman opened it again. And closed it again.

Virgil lasted until the third pop-click before turning and batting Roman’s grubby hands away from the side of his car. “Stop that.”

“Feisty,” Roman commented, but clasped his hands obediently in front of him, the picture of angelic innocence. Not. Virgil had a feeling that Ethan was scowling at him from over his shoulder. “You sure you wanna be left alone? I heard there are monsters prowling out here…”

He practically sang the words, as though nothing could delight him more than the idea of terrifying creatures ranging the countryside. Virgil made himself chuckle in spite of the shiver that ran down his spine, and nodded. “I’ll be fine. Thanks for the tip about town, Ethan. Thanks for… Whatever you did, Roman. I guess.”

“Nothing,” Ethan said, at the same time as Roman said, “Introduced you to the idea of vampire bunny slippers and made sure your car wasn’t broken.”

“Yeah. That.” Shrugging, Virgil tugged open his car door and slipped inside, then waved a hand at the pair of them. They were still staring at him with their bizarre, bright eyes.

He closed the door behind him, and the sound seemed to snap action into the pair of them. Ethan rolled his shoulders back and jerked a thumb at their minivan - the side of which Virgil now realised was covered in what looked like a mural of a pirate ship being crushed by a very large sea monster - before walking back toward it.

“See ya around, Virgil-Not-Virgin!” Roman yelled (why was he yelling again?) and followed, climbing back into the driver’s side of the van. The ‘music’ clicked back on, sound obliterating all rational thought (how was Ethan still sane, driving around with that cacophony all the time?), and after a second the van’s engine started up.

That was when Virgil filled up his stupid quota for the rest of the year.

It had suddenly occurred to him that he really, really didn’t want to be left alone in the dark and the quiet now - maybe Roman’s talk of monsters had gotten to him, maybe it was the contrast between the stillness of his cold car and the aliveness of the two people that had just stopped to try to help him, weird though they might be.

They probably weren’t serial killers. If they were, there was nothing to stop them from killing him as soon as he had flagged them down, or being a lot more pushy about giving him a lift. He had already told them his phone wasn’t working (why had he told them that? What had he been thinking?) and they knew he was alone.

Making the decision in a split second, he threw his door open again and started waving his arms, running after the van as it gradually picked up speed, as though that would make him more noticable.

Virgil only had to move a couple of steps before it screeched to a halt again. For somebody so clearly enthusiastic about cars, Roman should probably get his own brakes checked out sometime. The ‘music’ cut off once more, which was a relief, and after a moment the minivan reversed until Roman was level with him again. “Hey again! Change your mind?”

“I - yeah,” Virgil nodded. “Realised I’d rather not be alone. Promise not to murder me if I catch a lift?”

“Oh, don’t give me ideas!” Virgil raised an eyebrow at the toothy smile, and Roman had the decency to look a little less thrilled at the idea of murder. Why had he said anything? “Already said we wouldn’t - a gentleman’s word is his bond, ‘n’ all that!”

“Nobody’s going to believe you’re a gentleman, R.” Virgil had been planning on saying something similar, but Ethan seemed to have beaten him to the punch. “I, on the other hand, actually behave like a member of the gentry - in any case, you’ll be fine.” Ethan had gotten out of the van again, walking around the front to open the side door. Roman flipped him off lazily. “Is there anything you’ll need overnight? I doubt anyone will come across your car, but if you’ve got anything you’d rather not leave unattended, we have space for a bag or two in this… Contraption.”

There was a note of distaste in his voice - clearly, Ethan regretted whatever turn of events had led to him agreeing to allow his boyfriend to choose their transportation.

Virgil nodded, already turning back to his car. There was no way he was leaving his camera alone overnight - and he should probably grab a water bottle, maybe some food, a change of clothes - he would only need one change of clothes, right? Ethan followed him quietly, and after a second Virgil heard the slamming of a door and realised that Roman had come to join them.

The pair of them stayed quiet as Virgil pulled his bag from the passenger seat - his camera, laptop, and phone were already in there - and tossed in a water bottle and his weighted blanket, but when he opened the small boot to retrieve a clean change of clothes, Roman let out a low whistle.

“Fuck me, that’s a lot of stuff. You moving somewhere? Ow, watch your elbows, j-eez!”

“I’d have thought you’d have gotten better at respecting other people’s boundaries over the last few years, Roman.”

“I’ll respect your boundaries in a minute,” Roman grumbled, and Ethan snorted at the nonsensical threat. Virgil put his bag down by his feet and used both hands to close the boot (it had been a second-hand car even before he had purchased it, and the boot was stiff), then turned back to find the two of them nose to nose, locked in some sort of staring contest.

He cleared his throat. “Um. Are we…”

“Going? Yes, just dump your shit on one of the seats.” Roman waved a hand at the van without breaking eye contact with Ethan. Weird, Virgil thought, but whatever. They had been nice enough so far.

It looked as though the minivan had once held eleven seats, arranged in four sets of two down one side and three individual ones down the other. Now, though? The three individual seats had been ripped out, and the second pair back from the driver’s seat had gone the same way. Of the remaining seats, the two pairs at the back looked as though they had been converted into a makeshift bed: the backs of the seats had been bent down until they were almost horizontal, forming one large, mostly flat expanse. It was partially covered in rumpled blankets. A row of beanbags ran down the van’s wall, and blankets had been pinned over the windows like curtains; what looked like an icebox was strapped to the back of the vehicle.

It looked as though Ethan and Roman were used to travelling together.

Placing his bag carefully on one of the two remaining seats (the one with the brown stain that was probably barbecue sauce and not blood, because these people probably weren’t serial killers) and strapping the seatbelt down over it, Virgil sat down. One hand rose automatically for him to gnaw at the cuticle of his thumb; turning to look out of the still-open door, he watched Roman and Ethan finally break off their staring contest. Roman looked frustrated - he had probably lost, then. The taller of the two dropped a kiss on his forehead, and the green-eyed man stalked back around to the driver’s seat. Virgil couldn’t hear the words, but he was grumbling under his breath as he passed the still open door.

“All good in here?” Ethan was leaning against the open door, smiling at him.

Virgil nodded slowly. “I… Yeah, I guess so. I’ll be able to find my car again tomorrow, right?”

An answering nod. “The repair shop in town will do just fine. Tell ‘em it’s on the main road, about an hour out - no trouble finding it.”

“Thanks.”

Ethan nodded again, closing the door, and then climbed back into the passenger seat. Roman flicked the music on. Somehow, it wasn’t quite so deafening on the inside of the car. Frowning, Virgil leaned forward - he hadn’t seen Roman fiddle with the volume dial, although he hadn’t been watching… It still looked to be pointing at the maximum, though.

“Rigged it,” Roman said. Looking up, Virgil found his unsettling eyes watching him in the rearview mirror. “Plays super loud outside, isn’t so bad in here. Spent hours getting the soundproofing right. Ended up deaf for nearly a week!”

He started the engine as Ethan twisted around in his seat to look at Virgil again. “Roman,” he commented dryly, “enjoys being a deliberate nuisance. There was practically a mob chasing us out of Milan.”

“It was a literal mob, Eth. And you know you love me really.” For a vehicle that looked dirty and slightly battered on the outside and sounded as though there were monsters living in the braking system, the minivan drove smoothly - more smoothly than Virgil’s third-hand car, anyway.

“Milan, Illinois? Or Ohio?” If he was in this van, Virgil might as well make conversation.

“Milan, Italy. Nice place. Nice language. Good food. Sunny.” Roman waved a hand around his head, then turned to look at him as well - something that was not reassuring, given that Virgil could just about see that the needle on the speedometer had ticked past sixty. “Ever been, Virgil-Not-Virgin?”

“The road!” He should not have gotten into this van. Virgil was going to die because this idiot had decided not to watch the road and Ethan didn’t seem to have noticed. “Watch the road!”

“The road?” Roman glanced back at the windscreen and shrugged. The van swerved, and Virgil grabbed his bag to stop it from sliding forward off of the seat despite being strapped in. “Oh, the road! Yeah, okay… Wrecking the van would be a pain now I’ve got it almost perfect. Ever been to Milan?”

He didn’t sound at all concerned about the possibility of fiery death. Brilliant. Virgil was in a car with a lunatic. Well done, me, he thought sarcastically, don’t want to be alone in the middle of the road at night. Now I’ll be sharing a grave with these guys. Just brilliant.

“No,” he said, because why not keep the conversation going? It might help to keep his mind away from the apparently high chance of death. “Never left Washington before. Are you guys Italian now, then?” They didn’t have a trace of an accent, but that didn’t mean much.

“Nope! We’re from here - just going home for a few days!” Unconcerned with the fact that he had already told Virgil this, Roman yanked on the wheel, and the van skidded around a corner. Virgil grabbed for the side of his seat with one hand and his bag with the other.

“Ma viaggiamo molto, bambino,” Ethan added - because of course he would speak flawless Italian. Why not?

Roman jerked the wheel the other way, and Virgil winced as his shoulder hit against the wall of the van. “Non è un bambino, occhi di serpente, è Virgil.” Ethan blew a kiss at his boyfriend.

Great. Now they were talking about him in a foreign language. Maybe this was all just a really, really stupid dream, Virgil decided. He was probably sat back in his car, still dozing and waiting for the sun to rise so that he could make the walk into town. Assuming that there was a town, and that wasn’t just something else his subconscious had come up with.

At least he had the presence of mind to remember his camera and laptop even in a dream. They were his most precious possessions, both in terms of monetary value and in what they meant for him. Losing these would be like… Losing a limb, maybe. Or his head.

“-long way from Washington for somebody that’s never left it before, Virgil. Going anywhere nice?” Ethan had twisted around once more, and Virgil realised he had missed the point at which the conversation had switched back into English again.

Shaking himself, he patted his camera once. “Got a job on the other side of the country, took it as a chance to move somewhere new. Thought I might as well make a road trip out of it - still cheaper than flying, which is absolutely criminal.”

Ethan made a sympathetic… Hissing noise (?) as their driver bobbed his head, although whether that was agreement or simply in time with the ‘music’ that they were only just able to talk over without shouting, Virgil didn’t know. “Tell me about it! The faster humans learn how to travel, the more they try to suck every penny from you! Like money leeches!” Roman laughed, the idea apparently delightful to him.

“There’s definitely a strong correlation,” Ethan mused, turning to gaze thoughtfully out of the window. His sleep mask was still propped up in his wavy hair, though he had shown no inclination to use it again - maybe it was obvious how much Roman’s loud energy unsettled Virgil, and he was trying to make sure he wasn’t alone. Or maybe he had decided that they were close enough to town that there wasn’t much point in trying to sleep again. “Speed makes humans greedy… Sounds like the kind of claim - oh, Virgil, you might want to close your eyes for a couple of minutes. We’re almost at the Edge. Sounds like the kind of claim somebody could spend years trying to back up.”

“We should do that. Might kill some time, you know?”

“Are you telling me you’re already bored of-”

“Woah, wait.” Virgil held up both hands, remembered neither of his companions were looking at him, and let them drop again. “Why do I need to close my - holy shit! Sweet Frank Iero, fuck!"

Virgil squeezed his eyes tight shut a second too late. Light exploded around them, seemingly out of nowhere and leaving bright streaks across the insides of his eyelids. He could hear Roman cackling in front of him, the music still playing, an exasperated “I did try to warn you��” - whatever had happened, neither of his companions seemed at all surprised.

Maybe they had just driven past a football stadium, and Virgil hadn’t noticed the floodlights until just then? No, that didn’t make sense: he would have seen the lights when they had first appeared on the horizon. Unless they had been dark until somebody had just turned them on - at two in the morning? And Ethan had known that it was going to happen?

Automatic lights, then. Or - Or police vehicles, apprehending the two of them for whatever reason. But wouldn’t they have stopped, or sped up, or something? And if Ethan had known that there were police waiting for them, why would they have travelled this route anyway? It had to be automatic lights.

Then Virgil opened his eyes again, and realised that he couldn’t pinpoint its source.They were still driving through open countryside, on a road with no street lamps or buildings, grass stretching out on either side of them. To their left and stretching out in front, Virgil could make out a forest. The only difference between now and a few minutes ago was the fact that it seemed to be the middle of the day.

He looked out of his window, then out of the front of the van, neck craned toward the sky. It was a blank, pale colour somewhere between orange and yellow. He couldn’t see the sun at all.

Twisting in his seat, Virgil tried to see some line where the night ended and the day began. There was nothing. Just… Grass, and trees, and road, and light. Obviously. Night magically turning to day at three in the morning was slightly more likely than a magic line separating the two.

Of course, given that this was all obviously a dream, there was nothing to say that there couldn’t be a magic line like that. It wouldn’t be any more out of place than people with acid eyes and a soundproofed car who spoke flawless Italian, after all. Maybe Virgil should stop eating directly before going to sleep.

Both Ethan and Roman had turned to look at him, Ethan appearing to be somewhere between smug and sympathetic and Roman wearing a shit-eating grin that stretched from ear to ear. Virgil just stared at the pair of them for a moment. “... Road?” He asked finally, and Roman nodded before turning away again. Virgil cleared his throat briefly. “What the fuck was that?”

“That’s what I said the first time I saw it!” Roman crowed, and Ethan slapped his arm gently. Virgil grabbed the side of his seat as the van swerved before straightening again.

“One of the quirks of home.” Ethan gestured out of the front windscreen, and Virgil leaned forward to see houses racing toward them (how fast was Roman driving? Was this legal?) (Who cared? It was all a dream). “Never gets dark.”

“Ever?” How would a place function if it never got dark? “How does that… Doesn’t it… Drive people mad?” Of course, Virgil would understand if it didn’t. This was all in his head, after all, and his head didn’t always make sense.

“Of course!” Virgil wished Roman didn’t sound quite so cheerful about it.

Ethan sighed and shook his head. “Most people just learn to live with it. You’ll forget about it in the next day or so, don’t worry. That’s Lichmai for you.”

“Leesh May?” If he was going to be inventing names, they could at least be names that sounded real.

“Lichmai. Welcome to our hometown, Virgil.” Ethan didn’t sound particularly pleased to be back.

[arabrot]

Who Do You Love by John Doran

Who Do You Love?

We drove 5,000 miles of barbed wire.

You’d think that by travelling that distance around a country you could get the measure of it. Especially if the country was only 361 miles from top to bottom and even less from East to West. You’d be thinking reasonably but not accurately.

Despite journeying the equivalent of one fifth of the circumference of the entire Earth in 31 days, all we got to see was the road itself. England endless. What we experienced was just a percentage of a splodge, a smidge of a blotch on the coastal fringe of Europe that deserved neither the sobriquet Great, nor the title United. How did such a small area of land contain such extravagant lengths of major road? In the same way that a human body could house a tapeworm 33 metres long. Probably not comfortably but hopefully not fatally either. Undoubtedly, in May 2015 - general election month - England had beauty to spare: it’s just that none of it was visible from the motorway.

We met on the forecourt of a petrol station near an airport. Heat haze was already starting to rise from the tarmac. The Driver was dressed immaculately in a tight-fitting black suit, shades and wide-brimmed black hat. His concession to non-monochromatic decoration was silver chains carrying cocks and crosses. He looked like Asa Hawkes, the “blind” preacher from Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood - but much thinner. He tipped the brim of his hat hello. This was not his stage hat but his everyday hat. His stage hat, the kind of prairie Stetson featured in the opening scene of Holy Mountain was massive and kept in the kind of box that suggested it was an essential part of a drum kit. It had its own carefully allotted slot in the back of the van with the tons of amplifiers, speaker cabinets, guitars, synthesizers, boxes of books, suitcases full of clothes and bags and bags of oranges we were taking with us. There was only one way to fit all of this stuff into the vehicle, and packing it correctly was like 3-D Tetris. All it took was one giant, impractical hat in the wrong place and then everything had to be taken out again and reloaded in the correct position.

He was the colour of milk, which made the angry red scars up either side of his neck all the more vivid. He looked like the missing link between human being and some future race of Lovecraftian eel-men who would be able to breathe via gills under water.

As well as me and the Driver, there was the Passenger. She looked more like she had stepped straight from the set of Bladerunner than a Jodorowsky or John Huston movie. This was to be their last tour as boyfriend and girlfriend as they were headed straight to a deconsecrated church in rural Sweden to get married as soon as the trip ended. I was merely a temporary guest in their world. A road voyeur with a month long pass.

Within minutes of setting off we hit the M25 we became enmeshed in May Day traffic. I realised that most of the month was going to be spent looking at slow moving traffic on motorways.

But just as driving to Brighton was slow and painful, leaving it the next day was a dream. On the motorway, time stretched and contracted simultaneously in temporal doppler effect. The days seemed longer but time blistered, popped and broke apart pleasantly as the brain switched down a few gears into a near pure experiential mode. There was little to worry about. All I could do was count the pylons and pretend I had a flamethrower to aim at UKIP billboards and hoardings; to luxuriate in motorway sign typography and listen to Maggot Brain as loud as it would go. Miles Davis’ Agharta was the soundtrack to us speeding out of the south up the M1 towards the Rainy City. Al Foster’s ringing, open hi-hat was our fuel. And then it was nothing but John Coltrane, Electric Wizard and NOMEANSNO until we reached our destination. It started raining the second we hit Stoke. And then before long we were on the Mancunian Way heading for Piccadilly in torrential rain, parking the van under a tangle of flyovers. When I planned this jaunt it was a thing of beauty. I took an AA road map and unfolded it until it covered half the floor space in my tiny living room. I took a sheet of stickers from my son’s Thomas The Tank Engine magazine and created a spiral of towns and cities, first round the edges near the coast and then spiraling in toward the centre. Our proposed journey looked like an occult temporal and spatial message only discernable from the god perspective. What I planned was a perfect thing. But after you plan your perfect thing what happens is this: promoters start phoning you up or emailing you. ‘We’ve double booked you with a Stereophonics tribute act’; ‘There’s actually a bar mitzvah on that day’; ‘It’s Record Store Day.’ And then the perfect thing falls to pieces. By the time we hit the road the perfect thing looked like that terrifying film of a spider on LSD trying to spin a web. And there was only one thing worse than a spider on LSD trying to spin a web and that was a spider on caffeine trying to spin a web.

We stopped for several coffees en route to Sunderland the next day. The weather was beautiful. Fields of golden rape seed glowed under a blue sky. But I gave up counting the UKIP billboards. There were just too many. The purple pound signs zipped past in a blur. We’d been on the road for five days and I hadn’t seen a single sign for Labour. It was almost a relief when we passed a huge hoarding in an arable field next to a broken tractor which proclaimed: “Prepare to meet your Lord!” We pulled in soon after to stretch our legs in front of a petrol station that shared a forecourt with a sex shop wrapped in a large tarpaulin hoarding, proclaiming: “Under new management!” Next door was a garden centre flying a row of ten confederate flags and two Union Jacks. There was a knackered and rusty jet stream caravan serving up plastic cups of filter coffee.

It became clear early on that the Travelodge was our friend. Every Travelodge the Driver, the Passenger and I shared was identical. A family room. One double bed, one fold out couch bed, minimal decoration, very interesting mass produced art, scant furniture, tea making facilities and a portable telly, often chained to the wall. The Travelodge may have had less furniture in it than the average bail hostel and may sometimes have smelled like a suburban pet shop from 1984 but it was totally fine as we were low ranking touring musicians and writers, not visiting dignitaries from Saudi Arabia.

After Leeds, our Travelodge was situated in a motorway retail park so the following morning we walked just a few hundred yards to the Toby Carvery for breakfast. Pushing open the double swing doors we were confronted by a man in stained chef’s whites, with hair pushed under a light blue plastic turban crowning a jowly and crimson face. He was methodically and noisily applying a large cleaver to a foot long cylindrical sharpening steel with a schnick-schnick sound.

“Hello!” said the Driver cheerfully. “Are you Toby?”

The chef looked up slowly and a pendulous and translucent bead of sweat swayed under his nose. His eyes were like drill holes in gammon. Bruised udders of flesh were hanging below each of his nicotine-stained ocular orbs. He was possibly the most hungover man I had ever seen. He jawed away silently, his eyes flickering dully with rage as he started straightening up. The BPM of metal on metal increased. The three of us circled round him gingerly and headed rapidly for the breakfast counter past tables rammed full of people who looked like they were about to die. I had never seen so many morbidly obese people in one place at one time. It was like God’s waiting room with unlimited fried egg.

Oh England, you are sick.

It was only £5 per head and you could eat as much as you wanted but the choice was only bacon, sausages, roast potatoes, black pudding, fried egg, fried bread, beans and mushrooms. The thrill of the open road. Unlimited roast potatoes and bacon for breakfast.

(We spent just one night at the supposedly more upmarket Premier Inn, and it was relatively more luxurious but due to its incomprehensible automated reception machine, it took us an hour and a long conversation with two angry Premier Inn employees to gain access to our room. “Getting into this hotel was like the opening scene from a new episode of Black Mirror”, said the Driver, a recent convert to the show. “There’s nothing like waking up in some shitty English town, before eating some shitty English breakfast before driving slowly down some shitty English motorway for 12 hours before loading into some shitty English venue and playing a shitty gig to ten people before going to some shitty Travelodge just to watch a really well made English TV series which explains to you exactly why everything is so fucked”, he told me gleefully.)

Any hotel room was actually very much like home as long as you had a laptop, a handful of Nick Cave CDs, some Right Guard and a copy of Threads on DVD, which happened to be the exact contents of my overnight hotel bag.

Waking up in another identical Travelodge on another identical Motorway retail park the next day I realised finally that this was literally the worst place for a writer to be during general election month. Nowhere had wifi that worked. It was like being in a bubble of ignorance for 31 days. We had to choose these parks to minimise the chances of the splitter van getting stolen with all of our gear inside it. Every Travelodge we stayed in was essentially the same, surrounded by a handful of other outlets - a Toby Carvery or a Harvester or, if you were really unlucky, both of them. Then maybe also a Costa, a Boots and an Esso petrol station as well. They were all accessible from a motorway roundabout that wasn’t really near anything other than either an airport, a prison or an industrial estate. A vague hangover from reading JG Ballard as a schoolboy led me to believe that there would be some kind of mind-expanding nourishment to be had from this aspect of the venture but these motorway retail parks were all identical. They were the most co-opted and least free spaces of all.

After breakfast, outside, sitting on a wall drinking a cup of tea in the sunshine, I looked intently at a semicircle of rooks surrounding a single bird of their own kind. They were slowly advancing in toward it. The bird in the middle was stock still and not moving. It didn’t look like a friendly encounter. The Driver and the Passenger came out and joined me. The parliament were just about to attack the accused in order to peck it to death but just as the corvine jury bore down, they were disturbed by a loud noise from above. The Red Arrows flew over the Travelodge in formation causing them to scatter  It felt almost as if the Driver existed in a bubble of weird, uncanny, apocalyptic and esoteric events that moved with him wherever he roved. But it was also as if he barely noticed any of them. I stood pointing at the sky.

“Yes, yes” he snapped irritably as if he was sick of seeing this kind of thing. “Let’s get in the van and get off otherwise we won’t get to Digbeth in time.”

That night I dreamt that the solid iron core of the Earth was about to slough us all off until the planet stood raw and bleeding in space, just roiling magma with no skin to contain it. The utter indignity of being born between waves, the scions of a pusillanimous age we were all about to be cast into the void with the filthy scab of a country we called England. A flat and unmagical land. A depressing and tawdry place. When I opened my eyes Toby was stood in the corner of the room, sharpening his cleaver, schnick, schnick, schnick, schnick. Empty eye sockets carved out of rancid, fly-blown gammon.  

“We have to stop eating lunch at the Harvester!” I sprang out of my fold out bed and shouted at the Driver and the Passenger, waking them from their sleep. “The full rack of ribs is fucking killing me!”

Fuck the Harvester. Fuck Toby Carvery. All of the clothes that were hanging off me on May 1 were now snug and it was only May 12. My ears were ringing with the premonition of some future blue cheese dressing related pulmonary event.

It was easy to see how ruinous life on the road could be, even when you didn’t drink or do drugs. I felt sorry for younger bands who felt they had to go out partying every night after shows. After a couple of weeks it must end up hellish.

The road to Hull was paved with UKIP signs. Only Necrosis by Cadaver played at ear disrespecting volumes kept us sane. It was dark as we drove into town and ghosts lined Ferensway waiting to greet me. The cinema where I’d had my first date in town, the pair of us just turned 18 - watching Shirley Valentine no less, saying, “Imagine being that old” about Pauline Collins and Bernard Hill - was now a bingo hall. The war memorial that I regularly drank sherry in front of on a bench. The Welly nightclub where I saw a punter swan dive off a balcony and go headfirst through the corner of a formica table. When they took him out on a stretcher there was a blanket pulled up over his face. And then down past my old house on De Grey Street and into the car park of the Adelphi. And then the ghosts waved us back out of town.

The drive to Great Yarmouth was gruelling and 13-hours long because of traffic - we got stuck behind no less than three serious road accidents. Bodies strewn across baking tarmac. Bloodied travellers weeping in incomprehension at the hard shoulder. Slow moving the traffic might have been but at least we had plenty of long albums to listen to. Just like a mattress in a shared student house or the narrative flow of the Bayeux Tapestry - Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly sagged in the middle but it was very, very long, making it ideal for the van.

Eight hours later, after the show, we flew down the A47 unimpeded like we were clinging to a rocket, listening to Slayer albums sequentially at full volume, gabbling like a bunch of four-year-olds as we went. By the last day, I felt like I was about to die and constantly on the verge of tears. I didn’t want it to end. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was the worst of times. It was genuinely the worst of all times. And yet I’d crawl over broken glass to be able to do it all again right now.

You know, if you really want to get the measure of a country don’t drive round it. Take a train or walk. Maybe buy a bicycle or a skateboard or something.

We drove 5,000 miles of barbed wire and parked the splitter van by the roadside.

John Doran, Bangkok, Thailand, December 2017

[getnewsin]

Top best washing machine in 2020

A clothes washer is a significant interest in your home and way of life. It can bigly affect your clothing schedule, and make this errand less difficult and quicker. However, realizing which machine is ideal for you can be dubious. To begin, you need to choose what highlights are generally critical to you, and would pack the greatest punch in your family unit.

The absolute best clothes washers consolidate inventive plan with an assortment of productive cycles to clean your filthy garments, ration energy, and limit water squander. Others may take somewhat longer to finish your clothing, yet can fit in a little space so your errands aren't assuming control over your home.read more

Here, the best clothes washers available for you to consider.

Best Overall, Front Loading: LG WM3900HVA 4.5 Cu.Ft. Keen Wi-Fi Enabled Front Load Washer with TurboWash 360 Technology

Purchase on Home Depot

The LG WM3900HVA is the most ideal choice for a front stacking washer that offers productive and solid presentation. Including 4.5 cubic feet of inside room, this high proficiency washer intends to monitor water and assets while giving garments an exhaustive clean with various wash settings and the intensity of steam. This is particularly uplifting news for hypersensitivity victims, who will profit by LG's Allergenie cycle that wipes out up to 95 percent of the most well-known allergens. What's more, this clothes washer is productive enough to procure Energy Star accreditation.

For anybody that is dubious of whether a front stacking washer can flush bubbles completely or finish a heap rapidly, the LG WM3900HVA is here to present its defense. With five water planes, including one that flushes the entryway and gasket, commentators find that this machine works superbly of adequately eliminating cleanser buildup, hair, and garbage from a newly washed burden. HE clothes washers additionally have the disgrace of taking more time to wash than customary washers, however this model incorporates LG's TurboWash innovation to clean even huge burdens shortly.

Best Overall, Top Loading: Whirlpool WTW5000DW 4.3 Cu. Ft. Top Load Washer with Quick Wash

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Purchase on Lowe's

The Whirlpool WTW5000DW is a whiz top stacking washer, at a reasonable cost. This machine is anything but difficult to utilize and incorporates alluring highlights, similar to 12 wash cycles and a 'Profound Fill' alternative, alongside a treated steel wash container that won't rust. This washer has an impeller plate at the lower part of the tub that assists with disturbing garments delicately while preparing for even massive things, similar to covers.

In spite of its notoriety, it doesn't have the same number of highlights as some different models available. For instance, you'll need to manage without an auto-distributor for blanch or cleansing agent and this model does exclude Wi-Fi, however what it does well is wash garments—and if that is the most significant thing to you, this model is certainly justified, despite all the trouble.

The 8 Best Top Load Washers of 2020

Best Large Capacity: Maytag MVWB965HC

Purchase on Home Depot

Huge families or anybody with supersized clothing needs will value the larger than average limit of the Maytag MVWB965HC. One of the biggest limit clothes washers available, it has a drum with 6.0 cubic feet of room. Simultaneously, it's a high-proficiency washer that limits water waste and uses a middle fomenter for intensive cleaning.

The choices on the Maytag MVWB965HC incorporate a 'Profound Fill' setting to ensure that cumbersome burdens are immersed, alongside an inner water warmer and a possibility for steam cleaning. And keeping in mind that doubters may be worried that things at the head of such a profound wash crate won't get an intensive clean, you'll be glad to realize that Maytag incorporated their PowerSpray framework to guarantee that foamy water is circled up to the head of the washer.

Commentators welcome that the profound drum of this machine incorporates a LED light to assist you with detecting every single sock at the lower part of the washer, however a few analysts whined they required a stage stool to assist them with coming to the lower part of the drum.

Best Stackable: LG WM3700HVA 4.5 Cu. Ft. Ultra Large Smart Wi-Fi Enabled Front Load Washer

Purchase on Home Depot

A stackable clothes washer spares space when combined with a viable dryer and stacking pack. In any case, the comfort of a stackable model isn't just in its space-sparing capacities. Numerous models, similar to the LG WM3700HVA, offer an astounding measure of limit and a plenty of highlights to make your clothing day a breeze.

It's not hard to perceive any reason why the LG WM3700HVA is the best stackable clothes washer. With 4.5 cubic feet of drum space however a profundity of only 30 inches, this model effectively handles huge burdens without occupying superfluous room. With its coordinating dryer stacked on top, it fits well in close pantries or storage rooms. It's additionally planned with LG's LoDecibel innovation to help kill working commotion, which is of worth if your stackable clothes washer turns out to be close to your room or parlor. Notwithstanding the entirety of its positive highlights, the one basic grievance that clients in some cases have is that the showcase cushion can be difficult to peruse, particularly in low light conditions. Nonetheless, a great many people work around this issue with a very much positioned LED light.

The 8 Best Stackable Washers and Dryers of 2020

Best High-End: GE GFW850SPNDG 5.0 Cu. Ft. Limit Smart Front Load ENERGY STAR Steam Washer with SmartDispense UltraFresh Vent System with OdorBlock and Sanitize + Allergen

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This very good quality clothes washer from GE is another, new choice—in a real sense. This front loader incorporates GE's freshest development for washers: UltraFresh Vent System with OdorBlock. One of the most well-known protests about front burden washers is that you need to leave the entryway fully open after each heap to abstain from managing mold and smells—however not so with this model. GE has planned this washer with an in-entryway vent framework that enables the washer to dry out in the middle of cycles. What's more, parts that are inclined to holding microbes and buildup—like the gasket, channel, and siphon—are made with a material that forestalls the issue before it begins.

It's not exactly how this washer is made that makes it rampage spend commendable, it's additionally about what it can do. Notwithstanding being furnished with Wi-Fi and viable with mainstream shrewd home frameworks, this model synchronizes with its coordinating dryer to send settings when the wash load has completed so the dryer is all set. Consider the possibility that you every now and again wash little loads. You can skirt the dryer out and out. This clothes washer is fit for evaporating to 2 pounds of clothing utilizing an inward fan. This washer is one of the pricier models available, yet the result is a smell free and helpful approach to do your clothing!

Best Budget: Amana 3.5 Cu. Ft. Top-Load Washer with Dual Action Agitator

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Generally suggested and exceptionally assessed, the Amana NTW4516FW is the best spending clothes washer available. This dedicated machine incorporates fundamental highlights however amazing execution.

Inside this top stacking model, you'll discover a porcelain veneer tub, which may be the greatest trade off on this spending washer, since porcelain has the danger of chipping. In any case, it is anything but a major issue for a great many people can at present offer long stretches of smooth activity and straightforward washing. The wash tub has 3.5 cubic feet of room, which is on the little side for a full-size washer however is large enough for a normal estimated load. The control handles permit you to handily browse eight wash cycles and further change the cycle with five diverse water temperatures.

In the event that you regularly wash fleecy covers or hefty towels, you'll value the 'Profound Fill' alternative to abrogate the programmed load detecting innovation and ensure everything is completely soaked. In any case, you should realize that this washer has a top turn speed of just 700 RPM, which a few clients state leaves thick, substantial things actually dribbling wet.

Best Smart: GE GTW840CPNDG

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Purchase on Lowe's

Purchase on Best Buy

Give your pantry an overhaul with a savvy clothes washer that cleans your garments while improving your everyday practice with natural highlights. The GE GTW840CPNDG is a top stacking washer that remembers worked for Wi-Fi and works with famous brilliant home stages, similar to Amazon Alexa, IFTTT, and Google Assistant.

Accessible in standard white or a sharp jewel dark completion, this model with a middle instigator is large enough for your normal clothing burdens to say the very least. It includes a drum with 5.2 cubic feet of room and commentators state it effectively handles sofa-beds, jumbo sheets, and then some. On the off chance that you every now and again neglect to remove a moist burden from the washer and spot it in the dryer, you'll value the helpful highlights of this shrewd washer.

Utilizing GE's application, you can get notices to your cell phone when a heap has wrapped up. You can likewise distantly begin a wash load, so you can time your clothing to begin while you're still on your drive home. What's more, this machine has an auto container for cleanser and will caution you when the supply is coming up short.

The 8 Best Smart Washers and Dryers of 2020

Best Portable: GE GNW128PSMWW Space-Saving 2.8 Cu. Ft. Limit Portable Washer with Stainless Steel Basket

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A versatile washer like the GE GNW128PSMWW functions admirably for little spaces or as an option in contrast to making rehash hurries to the laundromat. With four caster haggles unicoupler, it's anything but difficult to wheel this compact washer up to an utility, restroom, or kitchen sink and associate it to your water flexibly. That is everything to the straightforward set-up; the machine wraps up!

While you can't expect a convenient clothes washer to accomplish crafted by a super estimated machine, you'll probably be dazzled with what this washer can do with 2.8 cubic feet of limit. Clients are glad to report that this model can wash covers, sheets, towels, and then some—quite possibly not at the same time. Also, there are

[gnoodle-studios]

The Grim: Chapter 1

In a small town, steeped in myth and superstition, a man was on the run. 

Not from bandits, or the law, but from something more… nefarious. The people around him can tell; by the way he always looks over his shoulder, by the way he says he’s only staying for a few days before he needs to move on. 

The local gossips say he’s running from the devil. 

They’re almost right. 

Technically, he’s running from the afterlife, after cheating death and hell in one fell swoop. If you wanted to get really technical about it, he’s currently running from a hellhound with no particular name, and one of the many demons assigned to handle the hellhounds, who got handed his particular case file. But the man doesn’t know this. 

All he knows is that if he runs far enough and fast enough away from that town, he might get out of all this alive. (He’s almost right)

------------------------------------

Miles on miles away, in a field, a pair of glowing red eyes open. 

The hellhound has never seen land before, at least not like this. 

In the afterlife, there was just quite a lot of rocks, and quite a lot of fire, and even a substantial amount of firey rock, and rivers of lava and sharp, jutting edges that would skewer you if you weren’t careful enough. 

But this place was.. soft. And green. 

There was no fire, and no large, black, pointy rocks, just stretching horizons of blue above the hellhound, and below it; long, green… soft rocks? 

It watched as a large buzzing… something (flying rock?) landed on some nearby Green (with some yellow at the top? These were strange rocks indeed) and danced around for a bit before flying away to another nearby Green (this one had blue bits?). The hellhound nosed forward to follow it. The small, flying rock noticed it had something stalking after it and took off, ducking between the bendy green bits. The hellhound, excited, chased after it. It couldn’t really generate any kind of logical reason to go with this, but dismissed that fact as irrelevant and continued prancing on.

It got bored with the flying rock after a few minutes and started sniffing around. All of this flying and being green and yellow and soft business seemed very uncharacteristic for a rock. It could be fire, perhaps? Fire tickled like the Green when hellhound was standing in it, and fire could be blue sometimes. However, the hellhound had never seen fire be green before, and it wasn’t warm like fire was. 

The hellhound paced worriedly in a circle and eventually came to the conclusion that maybe there was more to life than Rock and Fire. 

Eventually, after the hellhound had come to grips with this world-shattering realization, (and rolling around in the not-rocks, just to be sure) it remembered that it was here for a reason. 

Missions like this were rare. Few humans saw the point in bothering to enter any kind of deal with the afterlife, and those who did weren’t stupid enough to break it. Except for now. The hellhounds were mostly used as security, patrolling borders between life and the afterlife, making sure nobody escaped. But now that there was a deal-breaker loose, it fell to one of them to track him down.

Sniffing the air, it could tell it’s target had been in the area recently. Following its nose to where the scent was stronger, the hellhound stumbled out of the not-rocks (grass seemed a good name as any) and onto a path. 

Now, this was familiar. This was definitely rocks. Just very, very small rocks. That were somehow so small they were almost soft? 

Hellhound didn’t think it would ever understand this place. 

However, hellhound wasn’t there to understand, it was there on a mission. (...A mission that didn’t necessarily prevent it from taking a second to roll in the small almost-soft rocks). 

Finding the scent once again, hellhound trotted along the path, occasionally stopping to sniff some of the “grass” that had other strange colors on top. 

At some point, a small creature jumped out in front of the hellhound and froze. Hellhound looked at it. It was white and had fur that looked somewhat similar to his own, but also with a small round tail and larger, rounded ears that twitched as the two creatures watched each other. 

Hellhound waited for the inevitable claws or pointed teeth to reveal themselves, but they never did. The creature relaxed and hopped forward to butt against one of his legs, before moving back into the grass. 

The hellhound, thoroughly confused by this, elected to keep moving. 

He hoped he wouldn’t have any other strange encounters while he was here. 

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Down in the afterlife, a certain demon could feel himself beginning to develop a headache. Previously unaware that demons could have headaches, he couldn’t help but think maybe this was a bad sign. 

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After following the path for a while (and discovering all sorts of things that weren’t rocks), the hellhound found a road. The target’s scent moved east down the road, so it went east. There were other people moving on the road, but most gave it a wide berth or ignored it completely. Some stared in fear and whispered at each other worriedly. 

The hellhound figured this must be because it had messed up its fur rolling in things. After all, it couldn’t have anything to do with its glowing red eyes or general aura of darkness! 

Every hellhound had those, after all. 

The loose, small rocks turned into solid, large rocks as the road passed through a town. The hellhound looked around with increased dubiousness as it was revealed to it how much of this world wasn't rock or fire.

There were houses made of stone, large smooth gray ones, but also others made of something he couldn’t quite place but decided to call ‘wood’ for the sake of his internal monologue. There were also market stalls built out of ‘wood’, littered with many things the hellhound couldnt even fathom the use of, much less the material. 

The target’s trail eventually picked back up on the road leading out of the town, but something made the hellhound hesitant to follow. 

It.. couldn't hurt, could it? Just looking around? 

It was being thorough! That was it. Just.. really checking that the mark had left for good.

It sniffed the air, finding itself (not for the first time) distracted by a smell. The smell promised warmth, like fire, and comfort, like not-rocks, and maybe even a slight dampening of the darkness-aura. 

And while, in theory, hellhounds were tireless tracking and killing machines that could go without sleep or food or shelter, that didn’t stop it from wanting at least one of those things.

The hellhound moved closer. 

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The woman who owned the bakery and was currently manning the outdoor stall side-eyed a large black dog as it moved closer. She was a large woman, with broad shoulders and solid arms from years of kneading dough. She intimidated most who came to the bakery, including the occasional animal hoping to steal a loaf of bread. 

This did not appear to be the case for the aforementioned dog. Side eyeing harder, she realized the dog had something that looked like glowing red eyes. The town had a few long-standing myths about grims, evil spirits who would wreak havoc and destroy entire livelihoods. However, the baker was not one to buy into such foolish stories. 

And even if she was, she had had stranger customers. 

However, she was less forgiving when it came to thieves.

The black dog moved forward, considerably faster than it should have been able to for something of its size. 

But not fast enough. 

The woman growled and snatched away the loaf it had been going for. The dog whined and rested its head on the table where the bread had been and looked at her like it hadn't quite decided whether to threaten or beg. 

“Bad dog,” She said firmly, gently pushing its head off the table “Get lost.”

The dog accepted this without much of a fight and moved off, head down.

It looked like a well-fed dog, the baker rationalized. 

Surely it’s owner would come to retrieve it soon.

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In the afterlife, the demon rubbed roughly where temples would be on a human as a dull ache took up residence behind his eyes. 

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Bad dog? Bad dog? Bad dog?

The sentence repeated in the hellhound’s head like a mantra. It shouldn't stick as much as it did, hellhounds technically weren’t even dogs!

And she had growled at it! That was its move!

As the hellhound pondered, clouds that had been gathering overhead darkened, and it started to rain.

What could she have possibly meant by ‘bad do-’...

There was something falling from the sky. 

By all accounts, this should be a bad thing. 

When it happened where the hellhound was from, it was usually fire falling through the sky, and any humans down there always seemed terrified by it. 

But here… now… they just seemed… annoyed? Like it was some minor inconvenience at best? The hellhound looked up and a drop of whatever it was landed on its nose. 

This was not fire.

Fire was warm and nice and dry. This was the opposite of what fire was. This was cold and wet and was already seeping into its fur. 

It looked around and ran towards a small covered shelter with nobody else inside, and shook off, splattering the not-fire everywhere. It paced in a circle and curled up, listening to the sound it made on the roof.

Bad dog. Bad dog. Bad dog. 

The words seemed to echo with the drumming noise.

The hellhound curled tighter.

It did not want to be a bad dog.

------------------------------------

“Oh, you poor thing.”

The hellhound looked up at the voice. It was an elderly old woman, short with a bob of gray hair and a small army of scarves wrapped around her neck. She was holding some sort of contraption that caused the water to slide off of it and not touch the woman at all. Like a mini, portable roof. 

“You look so cold! Where is your owner? He shouldn’t leave his dog out like this!” 

The hellhound lifted its head to watch her. 

She paused. 

“Or do you not have one? I suppose that would make sense.”

She contemplated the dog before her, apparently deep in thought

With strange timing, it’s stomach growled. This seemed to offend her, in the sense that ‘how dare anyone be hungry in her presence’. 

“That won’t do at all! Come on, pup, let’s get you somewhere warm and dry and get you some food.”

The hellhound reluctantly uncurled itself and moved to the edge of the shelter. 

“Good boy,” said the woman, moving away and beckoning further. 

The hellhound’s tail moved suddenly and with a mind of its own, rapidly going back and forth. 

Hesitantly, it moved away from the shelter and followed the old woman home. 

The not-fire continued to fall from the sky and drum patterns into the surrounding roofs. 

It seemed to have a different melody this time. 

Good boy. Good boy. Good boy. 

The hellhound didn’t mind that one so much.