#you can’t just fill emptiness with limited human connection and expect it to stay filled when they leave???? unthinkable

[arthur-r]

all my fucking teachers are pitying me though???? like oh my fucking god i thought i wasn’t going to be that person anymore?? are you telling me that mental illness and physical illness and access concerns and low energy and motivation don’t go away when you move four hours away from home????

[watchtower-feed]

Death Do We Part (Part 7)

SSA Spin-off ✧ Jason Todd ✧ Physical Link ✧ 1 ✧ 2 ✧ 3 ✧ 4 ✧ 5 ✧ 6 ✧ 7 ✧ 8 ✧ 9 ✧ 10 ✧ 11 ✧ 12 ✧ 13 ✧ 14 ✧ 15 ✧ Notes: This is turning out to be a slow burn fic and I’m sad. I’m going to sneak in some fluff in the next part. Words: 2,354

    Bruce glares down at her, “Where’s Jason?”

    Talia’s eyes narrow in sadness and she closes them as she shakes her head. “He betrayed the League. He killed them all.”

    Before she could even finish her words, you’re already lifting up your knees to hide your face.

    “He’s gone, beloved.”

     Jason stares at the ceiling in his room, absentmindedly caressing his arms, finally wondering if he’ll ever see your words on his arms again. After what happened, what he did, he expected you to write strings of profanities and some words of disappointment or sadness. He at least expected a strong punch in the gut but all he’s received is silence.

     He’s drowning in the silence of his room. The silence of his days and nights. The silence even the wind brings in the desert. So many times he’s found himself clutching the fountain pen but never dipping it in the ink bottle. Only hovering its tip over his skin. He knows he’s done something extremely wrong and he can never redeem himself.

     But then he thinks, why does it matter? Just because you were born with the link, doesn’t mean anything. He thinks that every time he gets knocked down in training. He considers it while he watches his wounds bleed and stain his clothes. He thinks of you whenever he coughs blood into his palms.

     He can’t say sorry. He knows how but he doesn’t want to. He tells himself he needs this. These little bouts and drills are necessary for the future he wants, a future without his murderer. He’s just not sure if he wants you in it. Or if you’ll want him.

     Frustrated, Jason rubs his head, messing up his hair, and locks himself in his room without dinner. He closes his windows, turns off the lights, and lies still on his bed. He shuts his eyes and takes one last deep breath before numbing his body to the cold air in his room and the soft cotton bed.

     The first thing he feels from you is warmth. Then there’s a cackle like fire eating away at a piece of wood. He can feel the heat on his face and palms and he can almost see you sitting in front of the large fireplace at the manor.

     He focuses on his auditory senses but doesn’t hear anything, just the fire and wood softly echoing in the room. Then he hears the large wooden door slowly open along with a voice he hasn’t heard in years.

     “Y/N.” He can hear his father. His voice is so gentle and wary. Jason wonders if he used that voice to whisper apologies to his own dead body when he found him. “Dick called me because you weren’t answering his calls.”

     “Oh. I left my phone in my room.”

     Your voice still floods every fiber in Jason’s body. His body shivers, almost breaking his concentration. He hasn’t heard your voice for the longest time and it’s only now that he realizes how much he misses it.

     “I’ll tell him.” Jason doesn’t hear the wooden door close. Only the crackling fire continues to fill the room with sound. “I’m not going to ask you what happened but I want you to know that you can always talk to me about it. It may not seem like it but I am a good listener.”

     Jason almost wants to laugh with joy. For a moment, he’s happy that Bruce is taking care of you. Treating you with as much care and sympathy as he did for him.

     “Do you…” Jason feels you nibbling on your lips before you continue speaking, “Is there a way to get rid of a soulmate link?” you whisper.

     Jason suddenly feels whiplashed. His body has gone stiff with his mouth open and his brows furrowed, creasing close together at the center.

     “It’s not the bruises or the bleeding-- It’s just---”

     Bruce waits a few more seconds before prodding, “Just?”

     “Just,” you reply with finality. “Thank you, Bruce. I’ll go ahead and text Dick.”

     Jason feels the warmth of the fire disappear from your face.

     “Y/N, after we find Jason, I’ll help you find a way. If that’s still what you want.”

     Jason doesn’t hear you reply. After a moment, the next thing he feels is soft cotton on his face, warm tears on his cheeks, and nothing else for the rest of the night. When Jason wakes up, his own eyes are strained and tears have dried up on his own cheeks.

     “You seem distracted,” Talia frowns as he scrutinizes Jason who quickly goes defensive.

     “I’m not.”

     Talia doesn’t say anything but she keeps watching him throughout the day. The extra pair of eyes on him during training does not help him feel any better. He’s making mistakes he wouldn’t have as Robin and he keeps glaring at Talia until she leaves with a huff.

     Finally done for the day, Jason takes a stroll around the compound, something he’s taken to doing ever since you stopped writing. He wants to be sure he knew every nook and cranny of the place where he’s being held. 

     One of his favorite spots was an empty well half-concealed by foliage. He believes it’s directly under one of the tunnels connecting the fortress into the sacred city, a tunnel off-limits to assassins in training, so he’s been toiling his restless nights digging away at it absently-mindedly.

     “We may need to bring the soulmate in.”

     Talia’s calculating voice floats down the well as her shadow looms over Jason. He quickly panics but notices that Talia has her back turned to the well. Jason quickly flattens himself against the wall directly closest to Talia and Ra’s Al Ghul and slows down his breathing.

     “He still thinks we don’t know about the link. It could be our last chance to keep the boy in our control.”

     Ra’s grunts, “You know as well as I do how much more difficult that contingency plan is.”

     “Yes. My beloved has taken in a new ward. But we both know he’s not training Y/N. She’s still an easy target.”

     Jason grit his teeth. Your name passing through Talia’s lips does not sit well with him, especially the implication of what they have planned for you. What they’ve always planned for you.

     Ra’s is quiet for a while. A distant call catches both of their attention. “If the boy continues to fare poorly, then we may revisit this discussion.”

     Jason doesn’t go back to his room. Fueled by anger, frustration, and a grave sense of panic, he stays inside the deep well. After hours pacing back and forth in the darkness, forcing his breathing to calm down unsuccessfully, he stomps and jumps in anger inside the well. The dirt floor muted his feet but it cracked under his weight.

     A small patch of earth gave way and Jason fell through. He landed on hard ground in what seemed to be a man-made tunnel. The very tunnel he’s been digging to see.

     Then everything clicks inside his head. Quick-thinking and resourceful, like a true Robin. Jason looks up through the hole until he finds the moon halfway to its apex and estimates what time it is. From what he’s heard from the other assassins, the city is only an hour ride away from the fortress so he might just have enough time to run there and back before his morning training.

     Eth Alth'eban was a small city filled with priest warriors. They valued their faith and religion above everything. They prided themselves as people of great devotion and resilience. While the League of Assassins saw them as an obstacle over the land where the new Lazarus pit can thrive. 

     It took one week for the League to completely bring the sacred city down. Less than that to completely break down the citizens’ wills and only four days to corrupt half of their souls.

     Human trafficking. That was the new-age problem the League had employed to completely eradicate a city of devotion and resilience. They kidnapped their children, and then their women, and sold them to the next cities over. Once they fought their warriors, they were so enraged, they’ve lost all reason and that’s when the League had the upper hand.

     They defeated them but didn’t kill them. They fought the warriors of Eth Alth'eban until they were on their knees begging for mercy. Blood running down their face and saliva spitting from their mouth every time they pleaded. The assassins took one look at them and then walked away.

     That was their mistake. Once Jason had made it to the city, he immediately locates a small resistance of young people, children of the warriors the League had shamed. Without caution but with complete determination, he strides up to them with his hands up and states his purpose clear and loud.

     They stare at him like he’s crazy. Jason thinks he is crazy. But there’s no time and he knows what they want and how to make them agree. The group look at each other in question until the tallest one finally speaks.

     “If what you say is true, how do you expect us to go up against the League of Assassins in one night?”

     Jason grins, finally getting somewhere, much sooner than he thought. “We’re going to need guns. Lots of it.”

     A few months later, Jason stands front and center, surrounded by assassins and stared down by Ra’s Al Ghul. It’s one of those nights where a training member is given the chance to challenge a fully-fledged assassin. If they pass, it’s a sign that they no longer need training and they have achieved their first kill.

     The League is in shock when Jason walks past the assassins, the elite members, and stands right in front of Ra’s. By League tradition, only a blood-relative or a betrothed can challenge Ra’s, a fight for the position of the Demon Head.

     Jason chuckles, “I’m just messing with you.” He laughs boisterously as the room goes sour. Some of the young assassins try to stifle their snickers but Ra’s, Talia, and the elite members are not amused. 

     “Do you think this is funny? Is the League truly a joke to you?” Talia snaps at him.

     Jason doesn’t look at her. “I wasn’t trying to be funny.” He turns around to look at the full number of the League. He turns to the shadows in the darkness, counting the silhouettes surrounding the premises overhead. Absentmindedly he replies, “I was trying to get out of the way.”

     Bullets rain down like hellfire. Ra’s shouts orders. Talia pulls out her sword. But Jason is faster and he shoots both of them in the chest before they could even take a step toward him. He shoots them two more times along their torso and doesn’t wait for the youth of Eth Alth'eban to finish fulfilling their lifelong dream of vengeance.

     Jason sneaks away and finally escapes the fortress that has held him and shaped him for a whole year. The League of Assassins are bad guys, villains, but their methods are right. How can evil truly leave Gotham if Batman never stops it from breathing?

     Jason’s first destination is home, smuggling himself aboard a cargo ship and slipping into the city under the Bat’s radar. He doesn’t go straight to Wayne manor even though his feet are itching to come running to you. To his home.

     “So close yet so fucking far,” he whispers to himself as he waits for another night of darkness to veil the city and deafen it with sirens. He has been waiting for one big villainous operation that can distract the Bats for a few hours. He plans on going to Wayne manor and take you with him, away from Gotham and go anywhere in the world.

     Finally, from the surveillance he’s planted at every exit of the cave, he sees them leave at the same time, leaving you and Alfred in the manor. Jason still knows the property like the back of his hand and uses the shadows and blind spots to make his way toward the back entrance.

     He suddenly stops when he sees you on a balcony, the balcony of his room. Your arms are crossed. Your eyes are staring directly ahead at the horizon of the foggy and blurry Gotham skyline.

     “It’s warmer tonight. Did you find a better place?”

     At first, Jason thinks you saw him.

     “I bet you hated the sand getting in your hair and on your face,” you chuckle softly. “I stopped getting seasick so I’m guessing you’ve finally arrived… wherever it is you’re trying to get to.”

     Jason slowly crouches down beneath the balcony, pressing his back against the brick wall and straining his ears to hear you better, letting your voice replenish him like an oasis in the desert.

     “Dick thinks you’re here. In Gotham. That’s why they’ve been out there every single night. Scouring the city for you. Hoping you’re not injured. Hoping you’re fine. Hoping you haven’t completely turned to the dark side...”

     You pause for a breath and your voice sounds different when you speak next. Quiet. Sadder. “I hope you’re not injured. I hope you’re well. I also hope you’re not here.”

     Jason closes his eyes and leans his head against the wall, searing pain tearing through his chest.

     “After what you did, Jason… Bruce thinks the first thing you’ll do in Gotham is kill the Joker.”

     Your next words come in an even softer voice, almost strained, “Then maybe Tim…”

     Jason opens his eyes. All relief has been washed away from his body. Why don’t you think he’ll see you first?

     “I hope he’s wrong. I hope you decided to leave this life and choose a better one. You’ve always been scrappy, Jason. You can achieve anything you put your mind to.”

     Jason hears you sigh along with the shiver that goes through your body.

     “I don’t know if you’re listening this time. I felt you listening before, sometimes when I’m at the fireplace, or down in the cave, or pretending to be asleep… If you’re listening now, and if you’re in Gotham City… turn back. Take this second chance. Find a new purpose--”

     Jason’s heard enough. He slams the wall with his fist and rushes from the shadows until he’s off the property.

     You’re startled. You quickly scan the property for any movement but you just miss the figure retreating into the distance. Back into Gotham City.

✧ 1 ✧ 2 ✧ 3 ✧ 4 ✧ 5 ✧ 6 ✧ 7 ✧ 8 ✧ 9 ✧ 10 ✧ 11 ✧ 12 ✧ 13 ✧ 14 ✧ 15 ✧

✧ Watchtower Masterlist ✧

[pumpkins-s]

*toots world’s littlest horn* Hi hello it’s me.

So I promised chapter 25 of Not As Simple out today, for Undertale’s 5th anniversary....and truth be told, I worked my ass off trying to make that happen. I have...not had much sleep lately haha... But at the end of the day I had to accept my physical limitations, and recognize that even for this special day, it isn’t worth putting out a subpar, shortened, chapter lacking in quality.

So...I’ve reluctantly tabled that. 

Instead, what I would like to offer you, is a glimpse at the next chapter--a rough version of its first two scenes (subject to revisions in the final chapter, obviously) sitting at 2.5k words--and my solemnest promise that, god willing, I will be releasing the chapter in full either this weekend or the next. Basically, as soon as I can without costing the writing quality.

So, without further ado, please enjoy this preview--

“Daddy, help me—”

The recorder stops. Rewinds. Plays again.

“Daddy, help me—”

And again.

“Daddy, help me—”

And again.

Sans sighs as he steps back into the lab room, making his was over to Gaster. With a deft maneuver, he wrestles the recorder out of his mentor’s hand, cutting off another plaintive, shrill “Help me.” He places the recorder on the far end of the table Gaster is sitting at, just out of his reach, and plops into the chair next to him. Gaster doesn’t reach for the recorder—no doubt understanding it’s a futile effort after the last time Sans had confiscated it and spent the next hour swatting Gaster’s hand away from it every time he reached for it—but his eyes follow it all the same. And stay there.

There’s something shell-shocked and empty about him, ever since he’d heard Remnant’s voice over the radio. Ever since he’d stumbled closer, demanding to know what the fuck he’d just heard, and played it back—then played it once more.

Then he’d sat down heavily, eyes wide, and had said quietly “…That was a child. Sans, that was a child,” like it was the most earth-shattering, devastating revelation he could picture. Sans hadn’t known what to say—hadn’t ever really stopped to think about it until then, because Remnant is Remnant, and Sans knows something about being both a child and not one—and Gaster had gone uncharacteristically, unimaginably quiet.

He still is. He wanders around as if he’s in a daze, startling whenever Sans touches him, and answering slowly, with long pauses, when spoken to.

And that recording—that last sentence, especially. It seems whenever Sans makes the mistake of leaving Gaster alone for more than a few minutes, he comes back to the other monster listening to it over, and over, and over.

Needless to say, he’s gotten used to prying the recorder out of Gaster’s hands in the days since their successful venture into void-studying, as he juggles sifting through the mountain of data the experiment had given them, and trying to cajole Gaster into helping him. It’s the only way they manage to get anything done.

“Gaster,” Sans says, patiently, and Gaster makes a vague, acknowledging Mhmm noise, eyes still on the recorder. Sans waves it vaguely—feeling rather like he does when he holds a treat in front of Toby, or a really engrossing volume of manga in front of Alphys—and feels mildly put out when Gaster’s eyes track the recorder, as expected. He bites back a sigh, and tries again, actively taking the recorder out of sight and putting it in his pocket. “Gaster.”

Gaster startles, and finally looks him in the eye. “Yes, Sans, what is it?”

“Well—” Gaster’s gaze slips lower, to the jacket pocket Sans is currently hiding the recorder in, and Sans groans. “Gaster!”

Gaster blinks. “What?”

Sans frowns, feeling the genuine concern creep in underneath the thin layer of annoyance at Gaster’s constant distraction. “What is up with you?” he says softly. “All you seem to do is listen to that recording.”

“I just—” A complicated look passes over Gaster’s face. “I just—” He makes a frustrated noise at his inability to put his feelings into words, and makes a complicated hand gesture Sans assumes is supposed to convey his meaning. “I just can’t get the thought out of my head. A child, trapped in that place. After everything I’ve heard you say about it—after everything I’ve seen it do to you…”

Gaster trails off again, expression filled with some kind of morbid, fascinated horror, and Sans feels a pang of sympathy. Much as he’s more used to Remnant’s… Remnant-ness than Gaster, and to the void, he won’t deny the recording was certainly disturbing—or that it hasn’t stolen sleep from him the last few days, plagued by shapeless nightmares and dreams filled with those screams.

It seems neither of them can get it out of their head. It’s just that Sans is, perhaps, a little bit better at compartmentalizing.

Or…perhaps it’s something else.

“…Is it a voice you recognize?” he asks slowly, turning over an old thought—a thing he’d wondered, about who Remnant might have been before, and about Gaster’s human, the smartest of them all.

“No,” Gaster says firmly, dismissing the idea without hesitation. Sans senses no lie. “No, it’s not a voice I recognize.”

Sans hesitates, confused. “Then…”

Gaster makes a face.

“It’s not a voice I recognize—and that’s why it scares me so much.”

                                                         xxx

Sans runs a series of commands into the computer in front of him, overlaying the various maps their tech had drawn up of the void, trying to form a concrete, comprehensive image.

The computer hesitantly, choppily, acquiesces to his request—and forms a few samples based off their compiled maps. Sans stares at it, and then squints really hard. He squints some more—and then a little more, just to be safe.

“…Huh,” he says slowly.

It’d taken them a difficult, well-overworked couple of weeks to slog through sorting the mountain of data their little void-studying quest had given them, and things were finally starting to fall into a manageable enough line to take a proper look at and study. Except…Except—

“That can’t be right,” Sans says, and Gaster perks up from across the room, practically shoving himself back from the table he was working at, and sending himself, in his desk chair, rocketing over to Sans.

“What? What is it?” he asks excitedly, and Sans points a confused finger at his computer screen. Gaster also pauses, and then also squints. He takes his glasses off, polishes them thoroughly, replaces them, and then squints again.

“I don’t…What?” Gaster says eloquently.

Sans blinks. “We’re—we’re looking at the same thing, right? You’re seeing what I’m seeing?”

“If you are referring to the completely…illogical map of the void your computer has drawn up—then yes, my boy, we are.”

“Something must have gone wrong here,” Sans mutters, and types quickly, calling up the individual scans of the void.  Dozens of images flood the screen, and Sans tries to look at each of them and figure out what has caused the error. Eyeballing this is a little difficult given they’d used so many different mapping tools and scanners—and when some were designed to study greater ranges than others—but when looking at all the maps together on one screen, for the first time, Sans notices something he’d not stopped to think about before.

“It’s not just incorrectly measured averages of the scans or something,” he continues slowly. “Look at the individuals. There’s—they’re all familiar pieces, they’re places we know.”

“It’s the Underground,” Gaster says, shaking his head. “That—that can’t be right. We took a scan of the Underground? How’d I fuck up that badly—how’d you not catch it? That’s what you’re best at. ”

“Hey,” Sans says, with no real heat in the word, but then frowns. Too distracted with his shifting thoughts, the images on the screen, to argue with Gaster. “Hold on. Just let me…” He runs a few more commands into the computer, pulls up his composites again. “Maybe we’re looking at this wrong.”

“How so?”

“Remnant told me the Void was the place between places.”

“Yes,” Gaster murmurs. “The connection between the Underground and the Barrier.”

Sans shakes his head. “No, no. That’s the problem. We’ve been thinking about it too literally.” He taps the screen. “This is the void.”

“Sans,” Gaster says patiently. “That’s the Underground.”

“No,” Sans says. “It’s the void.”

Gaster raises an eyebrow.

“We’ve been treating the void as this separate, physical other. Like a house—we’re in one room, and there’s another room between us and the door. That’s the void, right? Except that’s all wrong, Gaster the room is right here—under our feet, between our fingers, in our breath.”

The eyebrow climbs higher.

“Think of it like…a mirror,” Sans says, “When you look in a mirror, you see the room behind you, you see yourself—it’s the same, except it also isn’t, right?”

“Okay but…it is, that’s how mirrors works,” Gaster says patiently, and Sans groans, burying his face in his hands.

“Okay, but what if it wasn’t? What if there were things you could only see in the mirror? You can’t see them directly, but—but they were there the whole time.” Sans gestures in a hopeless way, not sure how else to explain himself. It all feels so clear, suddenly—and at the same time he feels so, so stupid for not understanding it sooner. “This entire time, with Remnant flittering in and out, I was assuming they were coming from somewhere else. I thought of the void as a discreet place—but I was completely misunderstanding what they meant. It’s the place between places, an echo.” He waves his hand around the room, between the two of them, “It’s here, it’s always been here, we just can’t see it. We can’t hear it.”

Gaster’s eyes widen.

“Imagine if…” Sans says slowly, “Imagine if you were standing in a room. You can see everything going on around you, you can hear it. But you can’t touch it, you can’t change it—not physically, at least. Not the way we think about. Imagine…” Sans swallows, and suddenly his heart feels heavy. “Imagine if you stood there, and screamed and screamed…and no one could see you. No one could hear you. You’re standing in a crowded room making as much noise as you can, and you’re there, you know you’re there, but you don’t exist. As far as the rest of the world is concerned…you don’t exist.”

He’s not even sure if he’s explaining anything useful anymore—drifting further and further from the point—but now all he can think of is Remnant, and all the tears they have cried and all the different ways they have died. Dead in form, dead in soul. Dead to the world. But still there.

They were nothing, they’d said to him, just something with too much power and not enough common sense to die.

Sans shivers.

“Christ…” Gaster mutters, face ashen. “So you’re saying that…child, that child is wandering the Underground, alone, completely alone, and no one can see them, except in the moments they find their way to you.”

Sans winces, thinks of roots beneath the earth, beneath the skin, and switches images on his computer. “Alone…might be the wrong word.”

Gaster squints at the screen, and frowns. “Which one is this?”

“It’s the readings of the magic surges in the void. The hotspots, the movements of power. It was going to be a way to find more shortcut spots, like the one in the labs that goes to the Core. See, that’s there.” Sans taps a small, dark spot on the map. “You can see it. There’s some kind of…concentration there, presumably that’s what’s opened the rift.”

“God,” Gaster hisses in a breath. “Look at the labs.”

On the map, within the loose, spiraling storm of energy in the vague shape of the Underground, swirling and moving in its currents, sits the bright star, the eye. Right where they sit, where they sleep, along the tunnels and basements where they and their family spend their days.

“Remnant,” Sans says softly.

“They’re here?”

Sans sighs. “They always have been.”

Gaster moves closer the monitor, snatches the mouse out of Sans’s hand and zooms in. “Now I’m still not completely sure we haven’t both lost it, but—and tell me if I am crazy—doesn’t it look like there’s a second, separate hotspot, right next to it?”

Sans frowns, leaning in. “…They did say they have a friend.”

“…Please tell me it’s not another child.”

“Shit, I don’t know Gaster,” Sans snaps, annoyance getting the better of him. It’s Gaster and the recording of Remnant all over again. “Why are you so convinced Remnant is a kid, anyways?”

Sans has never been able to make sense of Remnant, shies away from any kind of label for them, who or what they might be—have been, will become. They’re static, an empty hole—tiny and grief-stricken and not quite all there at the best of times. There’s the teeter-totter innocence, little feet on his own, but there’s the darkness, too, the precise and intelligent way they hold themself, speak.

Child, it feels too small, too easy. He knows what it’s like to have a young body, and an older mind. He knows what it’s like to exist outside of time. And Remnant, he suspects, has done it much longer than he.

“I just know,” Gaster murmurs. “I can hear it.”

“Gaster.”

“No adult screams for their father like that, Sans.”

“Time doesn’t work for them like it does for us,” Sans reminds him as gently as he knows how, because he doesn’t know how else to admit you’re right, but—but—but—“They’ve pretty much said as much. The void may echo the Underground, but how times moves for them…I’m not sure, I’m not sure it’s the same. And when they…tap in, when they parse that barrier and I can see them, it’s not…linear. They’re finding me from a different time, a different place. How can we be confident we’re not doing the same? What we heard could be years old, Gaster.”

It could be the future, he doesn’t say.

Gaster grumbles, but doesn’t argue any further.

“Anyways,” Sans says. “Remnant’s uh…friend? Not what I was talking about.” Slowly, he zooms out, and points upwards with a careful finger, and Gaster swears.

“I acknowledge it’s not very becoming of the Royal Scientist himself to keep asking his own assistant questions, but…Sans, if Remnant’s here, who is that?”

The second star beams bright, casting a wide, warping trail in its vortex. On the map, it stands in direct opposition to its twin—the one Sans is sure is Remnant, buried beneath the castle deep with all the rest of them and their ghosts—two centers of power staring out over the battlefield across the planes of the Underground.

The Royal Labs, and the Ruins.

Sans thinks of forces that have found him within the grip of the void, tangled him up in blood and vines. He thinks of roots, spreading deep, searching for a way out above the soil.

“Honestly,” he says. “I’d like to know that myself.”

[dungeons-and-hermits]

Victorious Return

Genre: Angst/Fluff Characters: Doc, Beef, BDubs, Etho Summary: The nHo are gone, but never forgotten... and not quite gone Word Count: 4178 (yeah. I might have gone ham) Author: Mod Lori

In time, Doc came to refer to the event as the Incident.

The Incident that had taken the lives of his closest companions, the Incident that had left him alone and lost, the Incident that had sent him into a life of isolation. It had been a year since the Incident—in fact tomorrow would be the exact anniversary. They were dead, and to the world, he was dead along with them.

He wished that were true.

In the back corner of a dingy, dank tavern, he sat at a table with a mug of ale in his hand and three empty chairs before him. It was far later than he should have been staying out, so late that he was one of only three remaining patrons.

Hee downed his drink and then rose to his feet, body heavy. He wanted nothing more than to stay here and continue to drown his sorrows, but, if he remained in one place for too long, he risked being recognized. So, he lifted his hood and exited the dim light of the tavern, stepping into the night and keeping his head down—though that did little to hide just how much space his half-orc body took up.

He couldn’t be recognized. If he was, he didn’t have it in him to explain, hadn’t had it in him since his friends had been killed, and he thought that maybe he would never have it in him to do anything ever again except carry on as he had been, wandering from town to town.

His friends were dead, and yet, he was still here. Why? Why was he still here when the others were gone, wrenched from his life unceremoniously like they were nothing?

They weren’t nothing, and they never had been. They were his companions, his best friends, his family, and for the longest time he couldn’t have imagined his life without them.

He wished that were still true.

He was out of the town and along the beaten forest path within minutes. A lesser man might be nervous walking through a forest at night with all that he owned on his back, but it was a rare and impressive feat to find someone who could pose him any true threat.

Besides, even if he stumbled across someone like that, it wasn’t as if he had much to live for.

Now that he wished wasn’t true.

It was a dangerous thing to be alone with his thoughts, but he couldn’t stay anywhere for very long, and especially not in such a small town that would immediately know about a half-orc stranger come morning.

Because of that, he had to leave. Maybe someday he would build himself a house in the middle of a thick forest and live there, where nobody would find him. The hermit life sounded good. It was alone, unbothered.

He walked for the entire night, not bothering to stop to rest. By the time dawn broke, he was in the middle of the forest, still trekking along the winding path. He’d seen a few people as morning approached, mostly lone riders or merchants with carts.

He’d paid them little mind until he came upon an upturned wagon. It was blocking the path entirely, and a good ten or so people were surrounding it. Once, he would have stopped to help. Even now, had he been in a better mood, he might have still done it.

Instead, his heart hung heavy within his chest, and the last thing that he wanted to do today was help turn a cart right-side up. Ignoring them, he turned, venturing off the path and into the forest proper before any of them saw him.

He’d only just lost sight of the cart when his foot slipped.

It was stupid, really; a misstep on a loose stone, but sure enough, the stone fell out from under him, and then he was slipping uncontrolably down a hill that started gentle but, as he soon found out, eventually became steep and then dropped off to a vertical cliff.

He scrambled for purchase, mind blank with panic and limbs flailing wildly for a branch or a root or something to stop his fall. Unfortunately, he found nothing, and then he was free-falling off a cliff so high that he couldn’t see the bottom. It would come eventually, though, and so he closed his eyes, resigning himself to his fate and bracing for impact.

But, before he hit the ground, his arm—the one made of wood, not flesh—was yanked upward. A hand grasped it and lifted.

There was light; searing, blinding, brilliant light that burned into his mind even through his closed eyes, and as the light surged and then faded, he was surrounded by a familiar feeling.

He’d recognize Beef’s spell to reduce fall damage anywhere. Even a year later, even in the last place and time he would expect it, even with Beef dead and gone. The magic coated him like a warm hug, undeniably Beef; it was the immense, overwhelming power of a fireball and the soft, reassuring touch of a heal. It felt like companionship and inside jokes, cozy and safe and there to catch you when you fall.

As his feet slammed into the ground below he felt tears spring to his eyes not from pain—no, the spell negated any pain—but from sheer, unbridled emotion, emotion that increased infinitely as Doc looked up. Beef was there, right before him, face awash in terror and confusion and excitement all wrapped up in one, hand still grasping Doc’s wooden wrist.

“How-“

“You’re dead,” Doc said.

Beef blinked. It was at that moment that Doc realized he wasn’t… whole. Beef was a ghost; there was no other way to put it. He was translucent and pale, with the slightest tinge of washed-out blue. His torso could be seen but his legs faded into nothing, and he was just hovering there, dressed in the very clothes Doc had witnessed him die in.

“I don’t think I am.”

“Well, you’re not alive.”

“That’s true,” Beef conceded.

Doc’s heart was pounding in his chest, his ears ringing and mind whirling with a cocktail of emotions that dashed through his conscious far too fast for him to grasp or comprehend.

Impossible. It was impossible. Beef couldn’t be here, and yet, and yet, the feeling of the spell that had saved Doc’s life was fresh and full in his memory. There was no way of faking that; it was uniquely Beef, his magic a fingerprint that left no room for doubt. It was him, there was no way around it.

But it was impossible.

Doc told him as much. Before him, Beef shrugged transparent shoulders. The smile that the human gave was some odd conglomeration of sheepishness, confusion, and relief.

“I can’t tell you anything except that I am very glad to be back here. Well,” he glanced down at his body, briefly inspecting it, “mostly here, anyway.”

It hit him then, so sudden and elating; it was no wonder that it took so long to sink in. Beef was here, with him, somehow, by the hand of some benevolent god or fortunate magic. The realization forced tears to his eyes once again, and he named a few of the emotions that eddied within him: elation, sheer joy, overwhelming relief and excitement because Beef, his friend and longtime companion, a man he thought dead and long gone, was back, returned to him from beyond the grave.

Beef didn’t leave, mostly because--as they soon found out--he couldn’t; he was present, but he wasn’t corporeal, and he was unable to go much further than Doc could see. Doc was also the only person who could see or hear him, a fact they learned quickly when they came across a town, and one which Beef just as quickly used to his advantage, loudly interrupting Doc or talking smack about the people they interacted with at every opportunity. They fell into an easy dynamic within days; they’d spent too much time together for that to be difficult.

Beef couldn’t touch anything, either, save for Doc’s wooden arm. They weren’t sure why that was, exactly, but Beef had a few theories. Strangest of all, though, through some connection they shared, Beef could somehow cast spells through Doc. They were limited, of course, and immensely draining, but the power that rushed through him was unlike anything he’d ever experienced.

The month following Beef’s return was filled with experimentation. They tested the limits of his capabilities together, and Doc was happy beyond belief that, not only had his friend returned, but that he had a purpose once more.

Most troubling of all, though, was that they still didn’t know where Beef had been.

Beef’s running theory was that the artifact a year earlier had banished him to another plane. He didn’t like talking about it; whenever Doc mentioned it, even in passing, the man grew distant and quiet. On the rare occasions when Beef mentioned it, Doc got the feeling that it wasn’t entirely in the past tense.

There were times when Beef faded, times when he wasn’t quite there. It was terrifying. Every time it happened, Doc could only watch as the man’s form grew thinner, as his eyes began to focus on things unseen, as he ceased responding to Doc as if he weren’t really there. And every time it happened, Doc was convinced that that was it—that Beef would fade away entirely, and that this strange sort of being had been temporary, fated to be whisked off within months.

But Beef would return, and all would be well, and Doc didn’t ask where he’d gone. Maybe they would get to that point some time in the future, but he didn’t want to push anything. He was all Beef had at the moment; he didn’t want to make the man uncomfortable.

So they settled into a routine, and it wasn’t long before it felt like it had a year prior, even though they were still missing half of their group.

It was about three months after Beef’s appearance that that changed.

Doc was well used to getting in trouble. He was half-orc; there were few races that faced more vitriol than him, and he was well used to the prejudice that came along with it. Because of this, he wasn’t particularly surprised when he found himself arrested one day.

It was a small town, the kind which tended to be insular and not particularly welcoming to outsiders. Beef had been particularly brutal in his commentary that afternoon, and that hadn’t helped Doc with any attempts to remain inconspicuous.

They hadn’t intended to remain very long, but they did stop by the tavern for a drink (one drink, for Doc, seated at an empty table because Beef could sit but could not drink with his friend). He’d been getting up to leave when he had passed by another table and had overheard a human man saying something downright foul to the (extremely uncomfortable) tavern maid giving him his ale.

He’d grabbed the man by the shirt, lifting him from his seat and then throwing him to the ground. Beef had cheered him on, but he would have done it even if he hadn’t had someone encouraging him to.

The fight that ensued was completely one-sided. The man had three friends, but all four were dispatched and running off with their tails between their legs within minutes.

Doc had stayed longer than he should have, making sure that the woman was okay and apologizing for reacting on impulse (he should have made sure she wanted his help from the start, but Beef had egged him on and the man’s actions had left him in such a rage that he hadn’t thought that part through). She was fine, fairly thankful, and the owner of the tavern had come out to assure Doc that the men wouldn’t be welcome back.

He left the tavern and intended to go on his way, Beef floating along beside him pantomiming the fight and describing it in hilariously excited detail. He was met by guards before he even neared the edge of the city.

As it turned out, one of the disgusting men had been the brother of the captain of the guard, and so, with little ceremony, Doc was thrown into a small cell and abandoned to await his punishment

Beef found the whole thing hilarious, and if Doc could float through walls and didn’t have to touch anything in the cell, he’d probably have found it amusing too. As it was, he was less than enthused. Still, he had no regrets. He was just waiting for the right moment to activate his barbarian rage and get out.

The sun was beginning to set when the captain of the guard came up to his cell.

“I don’t suppose you know what you did wrong.”

“Enlighten me,” Doc drawled.

The man huffed, speaking slowly as if Doc didn’t speak Common. “You assaulted four men completely unwarranted in a tavern.”

“Wouldn’t call it unwarranted.” Doc rose to his feet. “They were harassing a tavern maid.”

“It wasn’t your place to intervene.”

Doc’s hand clenched into a fist. He was beyond tired of this. “Man, I don’t know who raised you, but I was raised to respect women, which includes not making lewd comments at them when they’re just doing their jobs.”

“She was a tavern maid, they’re there for-“

Doc’s fist was already in the man’s face. The noise that resulted was undoubtedly the sound of his nose breaking, and he toppled to the floor, blood gushing down his face and completely unconscious.

“Damn,” Beef said, drawing out the word as he hovered over the body. “One hit. What a punch!”

Doc stepped out from his cell, over the man’s body and into the hallway. Then he heard a gasp.

His head snapped towards the source. At the end of the hallway, a young woman stood with wide eyes and a hand over her mouth.

“Uh.” Doc looked down at the unconscious man next to him, then at the cell behind him, and then finally at the blood on the floor and his fist, which certainly didn’t look good. He returned his gaze to the woman, lifting his hands immediately and opening them to show that he held nothing in them. “It was self defense?”

The words had just left his mouth before a luminous light shone through the room. It was white-hot and familiar, and he recognized it as the very same that had heralded Beef’s return.

The magic that flowed through him this time was boisterous and jovial. It was the smell of a summer rainfall and the sound of a wild wind through trees; the feeling of family, of home, of belonging.

When it faded, the woman made no acknowledgement that it had occurred. She blinked once, eyes glazed over, and then murmured “self defense” before nodding absentmindedly and then turning around to walk off.

Doc’s jaw was on the floor. “That worked?”

“Not at all!”

Doc whipped about to see the source of the voice. He’d recognize it anywhere. BDubs. There he was, floating next to a wide-eyed and grinning Beef, with an endearingly arrogant half-smile plastered on his face and hands raised in a fashion that resembled a performer having done some impressive trick.

“I, however, worked beautifully.” A charisma buff. The kind that BDubs would give back when they were alive and getting into the same shenanigans Doc had gotten into now.

Beef, suddenly free of his shock, let out a whoop of excitement. He was laughing, all but manic, joy and surprise evident on his face and in his laughter.

BDubs was grinning, more genuine and relieved this time. He was laughing with Beef and his eyes were shining with tears and it wasn’t long before translucent drops were falling to the floor, dissipating rather than remaining.

Doc ran out of town with his companions flying behind him, the duo even louder and more chaotic than Beef was on his own.

The routine they’d fallen into picked BDubs up without issue, and now even more experimentation could be done thanks to the inclusion of another ghostly planar-stuck mage.

BDubs’ presence brought the group’s morale up even higher. He’d always had a way of doing that, as if his simply being there lifted spirits and created happiness. Doc had thought he’d never feel it again, and yet here they were, Doc and Beef and BDubs adventuring again.

But there was one part missing.

He felt guilty for it, selfish, as if two friends miraculously returning from the dead (or whatever plane they had been imprisoned) wasn’t enough for him. Why couldn’t that be enough? Why couldn’t he be happy with that?

But it was impossible to deny the palpable hole in their group. They were three-fourths of a quartet, not a trio. It felt wrong. They all missed Etho, he knew it. There was a part of him holding out hope that Etho would show up, just as Beef and BDubs had.

Days had gone by; days which became weeks, weeks which became months. Still no Etho. Still some glimmer of hope remaining in Doc’s chest, every breeze and odd occurrence sending him into a bittersweet whirlwind of emotion.

It was times like these when the disparity was most felt: Doc was in the middle of a battle to enter an ancient temple, one which he, Beef, and BDubs had hoped might help them on their quest to return to their home plane. It was the kind of fight Etho would have reveled in, but despite Beef and BDubs at his side, Doc was not winning.

His chest heaved with the heavy breaths he was taking, and he was practically using his battle axe as a crutch. Blood was gushing from wounds all over his body. His energy was giving out, he could feel it.

BDubs and Beef were doing their best, and Doc was eternally thankful for it; the magic that flowed through him could never replace what it had been like to fight with them by his side, but their familiar and combined presence made him feel more calm and capable.

Before him, two frost giants approached. He’d used his battle rage to take down their three companions, and he’d thought he could finish them off.

He’d gotten far too comfortable. Back before the Incident, he and the nHo could have taken these buffoons without any trouble, but BDubs and Beef weren’t really there, not physically, anyway, and Etho was still…

There was no time to think about that now. The frost giants were fast approaching, and Doc knew that he wouldn’t survive the encounter.

He looked up, and saw Beef and BDubs hovering above him, watching over him with magic at the ready. He couldn’t bring it in himself to say anything—he wanted to apologize, to thank them, to say something, and yet nothing came.

His heart ached. After everything, after all that they had done, this would be the end. At least, he thought, he’d been able to spend these last few months with Beef and BDubs.

He only wished Etho had been there, too.

He hefted his axe and strode forward to meet his enemies. The familiar, comforting feeling of Beef and BDubs’ magic surged through him, and he turned and faced the giants head-on.

The first swing of his axe hit home in a giant’s ankle; frost began to creep outward from the connection, spreading quickly towards the handle and Doc’s hands. He pulled it out before the cold reached leather, leaping backward and ignoring the screaming pain in his knee as he narrowly avoiding the swing of a huge club.

He wasn’t so lucky with the second one. A wooden cudgel the size of a large tree met its mark in the middle of his chest, sending him flying. One of Beef’s spells cushioned the resulting collision he had with a pillar behind him, but the sickening crack of his head slamming into it wasn’t dampened, and he fell to the ground in an unshakable daze.

Still, he scrambled to his feet, determined to fight for as long as possible, and ducked blindly downwards and to his left with his vision still blurry. The deafening sound of one of the giants’ clubs smashing the enormous pillar to dust made him immediately thankful that he did so.

In his peripheral vision, he could see BDubs’ spectral form beginning to materialize and brighten. Beneath Doc’s feet, the grass became greener; the trees around the clearing rustled in nonexistent wind. Knowing that it was the work of his friend, Doc allowed his wooden arm to raise and point, palm open, towards the giants approaching.

There was a scorching heat; fire erupted from the very air around him, surrounding the giant that had thrown Doc into the pillar and closing in, whipping about in enormous flames to envelop the creature. It was gone within moments, reduced to steaming ash.

Doc had no sympathy, and unfortunately, he also had no strength. The spell, cast by BDubs and channeled through the arm Doc had been gifted by all three of his friends, had drained what little energy that had remained in the half-orc.

He fell to his knees, grasping his battle axe desperately, only barely able to keep himself from collapsing to the ground entirely. The sole remaining frost giant advanced. Beef and BDubs hovered above him.

Doc blinked once, twice, eyes burning with tears that would never fall. He’d shed them all months ago, anyway.

I’m sorry. He didn’t even have the strength to say it; could only mouth it. He’d failed. They wouldn’t come back. They wouldn’t even know if it had been possible.

If there were one consolation, at least they would be together again, really together, at last.

Doc wondered what he would say to Etho.

He dropped his head, unwilling to watch as the giant lifted its club to drop upon his weak, broken body. He could feel the air displaced as it swung.

What happened afterwards was a confusing blur of broken memory and pain. He knew that the club met its mark; he remembered feeling it, remembered hearing the sound, but he couldn’t recall what it had actually felt or sounded like, even if he wanted to. The gap in his memory was a small gift for which he would always be thankful.

He hadn’t died, that much he knew, though he had been well on the way. There had been mere seconds of time between life and death, moving quickly closer to the wrong direction; he was fleeting and unconscious, but he saw the light.

There was a white light, warm and radiant, the kind he’d seen only twice before, only this time it was brighter and stronger and accompanied by an unknown and otherworldly but comforting feeling that sank into his very bones. He felt his body heal, felt wounds seal up, felt a spectral hand pull him firmly and briskly—though not without affection—from his place between life and death. He was back within his body, which was whole and strong once again, healthy like he hadn’t been in years; even scars as old as his time as an adventurer were smooth and clean.

He opened his eyes, still kneeling, to find a hand in his face.

“Stand up, Sir Doc.”

Doc looked up into Etho’s phantasmal face, the scar over his eye stretched white as his eyes crinkled in a grin that was covered by his mask, and took his hand.

His hand, Etho’s hand, there and outstretched for Doc’s wooden one to grasp, covered in the gloves he always wore but firm on his prosthetic despite the fact that he could see through it. After all these months of hoping, after two years of mourning, his best friend had returned.

He should have known. The magic was the rattling of glass bottles, the ring of dulcet laughter, the sight of mischief dancing in mismatched eyes. It was soft and proud, a quiet kind of power that left ripples of enchantment in its wake—it was Etho.

He didn’t even care about the dig. Etho was back, they were all back, everyone was together again and they were here and he wasn’t alone—and Doc was alive, he realized at the end of it all, alive and healed despite best efforts otherwise.

“Etho!” Beef shouted, voice positively jubilant. He sped over to the man only to fly straight through him, and Etho began laughing, and BDubs shouted something of a celebratory expletive. The three had already fallen into boisterous conversation, and Doc had no choice but to join in loud, raucous chortling, eyes filling up with tears of pure joy.

They were together again; not realized, not safe, not nearly whole, but together, and he had them back. He’d bring them back for real, he swore. He wouldn’t stop until he managed it.

[cozycryptidcorner]

The Unlikely Alliance, Chapter 2

Hey, everyone! A donor who wishes to remain anonymous has paid for a continuation of Sally and Ronan’s story! Please enjoy. I’d like to thank both the original commissioner and the anonymous donor for  their support!

You can read the first chapter here, if you haven’t already!

The watercolor wash of yellow and orange begins to dry as Sally starts mixing the perfect shade for the bright red foliage of the surrounding trees, the large window on the side of the living room giving her the perfect view without her having to go outside in the cold. Three mugs sprawl out in front of her, one for cleaning the paintbrush off, one for untainted mixing water, and one for her tea that she might have accidentally placed her brush in once or twice. Gently blowing on the first layer of paint to get it to dry quicker, Sally glances up at the old clock, mentally calculating how long Ronan has gone. About… two hours at this point.

She can’t look at her phone to call or text him; it’s been turned off and placed in the safe that Ronan has in the basement. There is a single, ancient-looking landline with Ronan’s phone number scribbled on a notecard to the side, and when Sally had lifted the receiver, she heard the telltale hum of the connection. Even though she had debated calling him, she didn’t want to come off as clingy. Hanging out by yourself in a cabin that’s so far away from civilization with only a single ratty old dirt road to get to and from it can give anyone an extra dose of nervousness, so it’s not like she’s irrational with wanting company. While she could just hang out in the room Ronan had presented as hers earlier in the day, with the gorgeous cross-stitch piece hanging in a frame on the wall, she feels strange sitting on the bed as if she’s invading someone else’s space.

Instead of spiraling down with her insecurities and fears, though, she begins to paint a beautiful maple tree. A part of her wishes she could have her phone to play some of the music she wants to hear, but at least there’s a little portable radio that she has tuned to a station with a decent array of music. The only downside is, of course, the advertisements that she can’t just skip after five seconds or pay for premium access, leaving her to suffer through it. By the time Ronan gets back, she’s already shouting alongside the ’BIG MAC is BAC’ commercial with great success.

“I leave you for what, a few hours, and you’ve already been brainwashed by corporate propaganda.”

She hadn’t heard him come in since the radio had been turned up to the maximum volume to try and drown out her anxiety. In fact, Sally has been so wound up that she is one hundred percent prepared to stab him in the eye with the back of her paintbrush, knuckles white against the wooden handle as she spins around. At the sight of him, hands full of grocery bags in the posture of someone who will only make one trip from the car to the fridge even if it kills him, she lets out a sigh of relief, setting the makeshift weapon back down on the kitchen table. Maybe she should turn down the radio, even if it’s just a little bit.

Ronan sets the reusable (reusable!) bags down on the counter, the plastic-like material crinkling slightly as he does so. As he unloads the different groceries down- bread, eggs, bacon, and so on- he’s already separating some of the items away from the others, putting almost everything away except a select few. Within moments, he’s got a cast iron skillet on the old gas stove, lighting a match to ignite one of the burners. Oil, then vegetables, stirred with a wooden spoon, the smell almost becoming too much for Sally’s empty stomach to sit quietly. She tries to distract herself from the hunger by clearing away her art supplies out from the center of the table, setting everything carefully to the side.

After just a moment of mixing on heat, he adds eggs, waiting just a moment before lifting the panhandle with a cloth, shaking it back and forth for a moment, flipping the omelet with nothing more than the help of physics. Sally almost bursts into laughter, but she’s too shocked to do anything more than stare as it finishes cooking. Ronan slides the food onto a plate he had quickly rinsed and dried, placing it just in front of her as if he’s a professional chef. After the moment of shock wears off, Sally picks up the fork and takes a bite, and, okay, she won’t lie. She was expected it not to taste anywhere near as good as it does.

“Why didn’t you tell me that you can cook?” She asks, incredulously, as she shovels an unladylike amount of food into her mouth. “I wouldn’t have ordered all the takeout if I had known!”

“You never asked.” Ronan’s mouth curves in a slight smirk. “And besides, I never turn down free food. Or the opportunity to not work as hard.”

Sally lets out a puff of exacerbated breath because of course, but doesn’t feel the need to complain as she eats the rest of the food. Of course, she volunteers to do the dishes, might as well offer up some productivity, so while she starts filling the sink with sudsy water, she watches Ronan’s movements like a hawk. There’s something about the awkwardness of invading someone’s house that feels like it’s increased by threefold because… well, it’s Ronan, and she doesn’t know anything about it. The fact that she is in his cabin with a hypothetical window into his life, it feels strange.

Once the dishes are done, Sally realized how little there is to do. Yes, she can finish this painting today, and another one tomorrow, and another one after that. But with the limited amount of things to use as subject pieces, ohhhhh noooo, she’s going to get so restless. Pulling all her supplies back from the corner of the table and spreading everything out again, she tries to distract herself with the inevitability of cabin fever as she continues painting each and every leaf that she can see. The few hours before dinner fly by quickly, as they tend to do when she’s engrossed in her work, and Ronan is soon back in the kitchen, working on whatever recipe he has up his sleeve.

“Question,” Sally starts as Ronan sits across from her, “and feel free to shut me down if you think I’m acting xenophobic, I’ll knock it off. I know that werewolves feel the urge to change during the full moon, but I don’t think you’ve disappeared in the couple of months you’ve been with me.” Inwardly, she cringes at her choice of words. Sounds almost like they’re a couple.

Ronan cocks his head to the side slightly, eyes flickering in thought. “Well, you know how people who are violently allergic to things have epipens, right?” At her nod, he continues, reaching into his pocket and pulling out something about the size of a thick pencil. “Werewolves have something similar. If we feel the need to turn, we’ll slam this into our thigh, and that should stave off anything for a good couple of hours, which normally is enough time to get away from whatever the trigger is.”

Oh, it suddenly makes sense now. “That’s convenient,” she says, unable to think of any other words to describe having to stab yourself whenever you felt on the edge of a frenzy. Good isn’t quite the term she is looking for since this isn’t really a situation that could be construed as positive.

Ronan shrugs as though it’s nothing. “It’s easier than being locked up in the slum camps.”

Sally bites down her tongue and doesn’t say anything else. Once a were ends up in the slum camps, whether it was for petty crime or a fully fledged change in a populated area, it is very, very difficult for them to get back out. Even if they do, they need to have a human sponsor, an upcoming job with on the book wages, and those are the only two qualifications that she, a person who has lived a somewhat sheltered life, knows about. She has little doubt that there are so much more hoops those poor people have to jump through simply to be able to walk around unchained again.

Silently, she pokes at the food on her plate, scrambling for a way to turn this conversation somewhat positive, but the first thing that pops into her head is, “I’m glad that you’re the one protecting me.”

There is a pause, during which she is mentally kicking herself before Ronan responds. “This is the best job I could ask for given the circumstances.”

Which isn’t really an affirmation of any kind, more of a double-edged sword. They finished their food in silence, and Sally immediately started clearing the table. There’s no dishwasher, which she is only momentarily grateful for since that’s thirty minutes she doesn’t have to think about how she should be productive. Instead of hanging out in the living area with Ronan as he begins to clean and oil a wickedly sharp looking hunting knife, Sally finally decides to retreat to the room she’ll be staying in.

While it might not even be close to the most luxurious place she has ever been to, it most definitely is the homiest. And, as Sally thinks about it, homey is something she favors much more than whatever money can buy. Home is someplace that someone works to get, their emotions bleed through the surface, their love and hard work pouring into every crevice of the log walls and wooden floor. At the same time, Sally feels almost like she shouldn’t be there, that she is intruding on someone else’s life, and that she doesn’t deserve to catch glimpses of what Ronan is like outside of his job.

In any case, she lays down, the sheets stiff from years of unuse, pillow so saggy beneath her neck that she has to fold it in half for any kind of support. While the curtains have been drawn shut from whenever Ronan was last here, Sally eyes them suspiciously, as though someone might be on the other side, biding their time. With the tossing and turning she does, it’s a miracle she can even get a wink of sleep in the night, her heart thumping at any kind of creak the house sounds as it settles. That’s the thing about different buildings, they make unique noises in the night. It’s funny how little it took for Sally to forget that just from living a single year in an apartment.

Just as she had predicted; the next days of monotony begin to drive her mad. Sally tries her best to stay busy, she does, but she can only do so much homework without her professor’s instructions before she begins to lose it. She’s painted almost every interesting position out of the windows, and then gathered up some random objects from the cabin and tried making a still life. That painting only partially developed before she got bored of the subject material and abandoned it, still taped to a random piece of wood board she found for stability. Ronan walks with her outside, but only in short, quick bursts, not nearly enough to make Sally feel less isolated from the rest of the world.

Even though Sally would rather very much prefer that Ronan doesn’t leave her side, he still has to go out and buy food, without her. She watches him leave in another motorcycle he had stashed away in the adjacent shed (apparently he has more than just one), since taking her car might catch the attention from the wrong person. The moment he leaves from view, she begins to feel nervous once more, and even while she tries to rationalize it, you really can’t logic anxiety away.

Before she has a chance to spiral, the door knocks.

Her mouth goes dry.

Ronan always just strolls through the door like he owns the place, because, you know, so someone knocking would mean that this is someone else; theoretically, she thinks, trying to calm herself. Ronan might have just forgotten his keys, the ones he used to… leave… on the motorcycle. There’s a hunting knife that hangs on the wall like some antique trophy, so Sally stands on the tips of her toes to snag it before approaching the door. Biting her lower lip from nervousness, her fingers close around the cold doorknob as she tries calming her breath. Then, slowly, she opens it.

It’s a little girl, only about as tall as her waist, clothes filthy, puffy hair full of dirt, leaves, and twigs. The side of her quivering mouth is dripping with blood, her faded jeans ripped around her left knee. The eyes, though, are what catch Sally’s attention the most; bright, ruby-red, the color vivid enough to feel like it glows against her dull, earthy skin. In a small, mousy voice, she asks, “are you Ronan?”

“I- um, Ronan isn’t here right now, can I help you with anything?”

Wrong thing to say, apparently, because the little girl sticks out her lower lip, tears filling her eyes, and begins to bawl as if Sally had just straight slapped her instead.

Immediately panicking, she bends over, trying to get to the little child’s level, and begins to let out a hasty bit of comfort. “It’s- it’s alright. Ronan should be back any minute, really, he just went out to get food.” She realizes that she still has a machete the size of her forearm in hand, and not only is it probably terrifying the kid, but it’s also too late to do anything about it. Camly, robotically, she places it up on the coat hanger shelf that sits on the wall, directly to the side of the door while the girl goes hysterical.

Sally has never really needed to deal with a screaming child, and as the girl’s breath comes out in uneven gasps and chokes, tears clearing away the dirt from her cheeks and chin, she just sort of stands there, watching for a moment in complete befuddlement. Without any other idea of what to do, Sally ushers her in, setting the girl on one of the couches while she searches for something to wipe the grime with, going through the drawers frantically as she temporarily forgets where anything is with the impending stress. Finally, Sally is victorious, lifting up a small washcloth before running it under warm water from the tap.

The little girl doesn’t protest as Sally begins to gently scrub the mud off her face, her sobs slowing down to quiet, miserable hiccups as she gradually gets cleaner. Now, Sally doesn’t exactly have anything that could possibly fit this girl’s skinny, tiny frame, but there is no way she is going to let this poor creature stay in those dirty clothes a minute longer. One of her painting shirts should do the trick, and since it exists merely for the express purpose of getting dirty, Sally doesn’t mind its fate too terribly. Sally helps the girl change after she locates the shirt, slipping the oversized thing over her dusty hair, the stick-like arms popping out of the sleeves after Sally reaches through the holes to help guide her hands.

Soon enough, Sally has a much calmer child sitting at the table, pouring glass after glass of water for her to drink as if the poor thing has gone days without. There are billions of questions circling inside Sally’s head, what is a child doing out in the forest, why does she look like she just clawed her way out of hell, and how exactly is Ronan involved with this, but she starts with something small, something easily given up. “My name is Sally, what’s yours?”

The girl looks up at her, like a deer in headlights.

Sally feels almost guilty, the poor thing looks like she’s ready to be punched in the gut at any moment. “It’s alright if you don’t want to tell me, that’s you’re choice to make.”

It takes only a moment of silence. Quietly, as though the girl fears some kind of reprimand, she speaks. “Bernadette.”

Sally tries not to revel too hard at this step in the right direction. “Bernadette? That’s your name?” At the girl’s nod, Sally tries offering some encouragement for the show of trust. “That’s such a beautiful name! Not quite as fancy and pretty as plain old Sally, huh?”

Bernadette’s mouth twitches upward in a way that reminds Sally of Ronan, the hesitancy for showing any positive emotion was so on par that she gets an overwhelming sense of deja vu. Just as she’s about to start wheedling the story of why a kid that can’t be more than eight years old is out and about in the deep wilderness, more knocking comes from the door. It’s not like the girl’s knocking, which had been quiet and timid, but loud, demanding. Bernadette’s eyes glance up to drawn curtains as if they would suddenly disappear to reveal her worst nightmare lurking on the porch.

As Sally approaches the door, she feels her heart lurching in her stomach as she hears thick, dull sounding footsteps just outside on the porch. If this were a few months ago, Sally would automatically assume it’s Ronan, clomping on the wooden porch and waiting to be let in. But something is off about the rhythm of the steps, the sound of the boots, ticks and shows that someone would only catch if they are just shy of being intimately familiar with a person.

Carefully, she retrieves the machete back from the top of the coat rack, gripping it so tightly that her knuckles turn white. There is no peephole to look through, so Sally just opens the door quickly in the hopes of throwing whoever it is off their game, giant knife hidden behind her back in a not so subtle manner. “Can I help you?”

The sight of this man makes her skin crawl.

For one, his smile is far too wide for her comfort. It reminds her of that one man her dad still does business with, one that watched her with eyes a little too hawk-like when she was younger, showering Sally with strange compliments that made both her and her dad uncomfortable. Second, while his uniform is of a police force, it isn’t exactly one that Sally is intimately familiar with, but she is confident that Ronan must be. CCU is embroidered on his uniform, just above the left pocket, and she knows that he isn’t here for any humans.

“Can I help you?” She asks, hoping her dull green eyes will help put him off.

“Pardon the intrusion, ma’am, but I’m here to do a scheduled checkup to the were resident listed in the lease.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Sally doesn’t know where Ronan is or when he’ll be back. “Um, I’m sorry, my bod- er, boyfriend, will be back from the grocery store shortly. Can you come back in a few hours?”

The officer waits for a beat, blinking his icy eyes only once. “I didn’t realize that Ronan had a girlfriend, nor one so… human, as you seem.”

Sally forces a smile and begins to shut the door. “I’ll let him know that you stopped by, nice meeting you!”

He sticks his foot in the threshold, stopping the door just as Sally thought it was all over. Calmly, she opens the door again, throwing up a poker face so quickly that even trained detectives don’t even notice.

“Will that be all?” She asks, her tone an unfriendly an echo from when she first opened the door.

“Mmm, we’ll see.” He digs through his pockets, retrieving a folded piece of paper. Unfolding it carefully with his pale hands, he flips it around and shows a picture of a little girl, hair in careful, precise braids. When the officer shoves it towards her, she takes it reluctantly, not wanting any part of this in the slightest, needing to play along only until he leaves. “Have you seen this girl? She’s been missing from her family, her poor mother is absolutely frantic.”

Even though she tries to only pretend to look over the picture with no real intention of memorizing it, she realizes that the sparkly red eyes look familiar. Too familiar. Something in her face must have given it away because the officer snatches the picture back victoriously.

“Where is she?” He asks, voice no longer holding up a facade of friendliness.

Lie. “Oh, her,” Sally waves her hand nonchalantly. “I don’t know. She came looking for money and scraps, so I sent her to the nearest poor house. Don’t know what a were kid was doing all the way out in the forest, but it can’t be anything good.”

Out in the distance, Sally can hear the steady putter of an oncoming motorcycle. She does her best to not show any shred of excitement as the officer’s face twitches, ever so slightly. “And where would that be?”

Sally offers a shrug. “I don’t know, aren’t there ones in every city? She’ll find it.”

Then, miracle of all miracles, Ronan pulls up. Sally can already see that his muscles are tense, ready to fight, but still cautious about having to go toe to toe with this man.

“Ah, Mr. Kazimir! How nice of you to join us. I was just chatting with your girlfriend!”

Ronan didn’t even give much of a reaction to the last bit, just as Sally had hoped. Two grocery bags in each hand, he walks over, calmly standing to the officer’s side. “Did you need anything, sir?”

“No, no, just doing a wellness check. You didn’t come in for your annual appointment, as promised, and haven’t answered any of your cell calls. The only reason you haven’t been arrested yet is that your boss has been vouching for you.”

Ronan looks exasperated, but he does his best to keep his cool. “That was yesterday, wasn’t it?”

The officer chuckles, giving Ronan a not-so-friendly pat on the shoulder. “Well, if I had a girl with a body like that, I might forget a few things here and there, too.”

Neither Sally nor Ronan laughs along.

“Is that all, sir?” Ronan asks, voice tense.

The officer sighs, “well, there is a kid on the run from the institution, but your girl says that she sent that runt away. Now I have to go look all over town, maybe even out in the next.” He looks at Sally, almost petrifying her with the murder in his eyes. “Next time,” he says, voice no longer holding a shred of faux friendliness, “just invite the child in and wait for me to show up, eh?”

“Sure,” Sally says, trying to keep it together.

Ronan waits until the officer gets into his sleek, fancy car, driving off with the roar of an engine before coming in. Sally steps away to the side as he does so, letting the machete hang limply by her leg as she closes the door, locking the deadbolt. For a moment, everything is completely silent, then Ronan turns towards her, eyes livid.

“You turned away a- a- child? What is wrong-”

“Will you shut up for a second?!” Sally surprises herself by her tone and how much his words hurt. “Do you honestly think I’m that- that malicious? That I’m stupid? Is that what you really believe about me?”

Ronan blinks, half shaking his head, and is about forming another sentence when Sally beats him to the punch.

“I thought you would know me better than that.”

One of the bedroom doors creeks open behind her, and by the look in Ronan’s eyes, Bernadette must have stepped out. Without another word, Sally stares him down as the little girl takes a step into the short hallway, the floor creaking against her slight weight.

“I was hiding,” Bernadette says, her voice timid and airy.

Sally immediately spins around, dropping the anger so Bernadette won’t have to witness the ugliness of it all. “And that was a very, very smart thing to do, honey. If that man had come in, I wouldn’t have been able to stop him.”

Bernadette nods, and actually smiles at her for the first time, showing off a gap where her front teeth should be. Without another word to Ronan, Sally takes the bags from his hands, then sets them on the kitchen counter to take stock of what they have to use for dinner. Bernadette is probably starving, after all, and Sally wants this little girl’s first meal to be a good one.

“Thay man is going to be back with a search warrant,” Ronan says, “once he realizes there is no sign of the girl out in town.”

“Then, I guess,” Sally pulls out a loaf of bread, “we should think about moving on, huh?”

“Running would look suspicious.”

“And staying for him to find her is a better alternative?”

Ronan closes his mouth tightly, knowing that she’s right. “Not only did that CCU guy see your face, he probably is going to figure out that there’s a hefty price on your head once he starts asking around. There’s no way I can transport you anywhere, anymore, at least nowhere with federal were regulators.”

Sally presses her hands against the counter, hoping the pressure against her palms will help steel her nerves. “Give me my cell phone, I’ll call in a favor.”

“Sally-”

“I said to give me my godda-” she lets the curse word sizzle out as he glances over to Bernadette, “- just get me my phone.”

Ronan stares at her, just for a second, but doesn’t utter another word of argument as he spins around, retreating back to the safe. As he does so, Sally taps her fingers against the fake granite, and asks Bernadette, “what are you feeling for dinner? Grilled cheese? Pasta?”

Her ruby eyes sparkle, if she were any hungrier, she might start drooling on the floor.

Well, Sally doesn’t want the kid to eat herself sick, so she can’t just slam down a feast of unprecedented carbs, no matter how much she wants to spoil her. “Why don’t we start with some grilled cheese and soup? It’s warm you right up.”

Ronan comes up, just in time for Sally to relay the dinner plan to him, handing her the phone.

Calmly, despite the butterflies ramming up and down in her stomach, she walks over to her room. After shutting and locking the door, she flops onto her bed, watching the cell phone’s screen light up as she turns it on for the first time in what feels like years. After typing in her password, her thumb hovers over the phone app for a minute, listening to the muted voices of Ronan and Bernadette on the other side of her door.

Breathing in and out, trying to get a hold of herself, she types in the phone number she’s had memorized by heart.

It only rings once.

“Sally?”

Deep breath. “Hey, dad. I need a favor.”

[cecilspeaks]

144 - The Dreamer

It’s turtles all the way down. But man, it’s kittens all the way up.

Welcome to Night Vale.

Our top story today is the PTA bake sale from 4 until 8 PM at Night Vale High School. There will be cakes, pies, cookies and all sorts of desserts available, and the money goes to a great cause: funding for the blood space war. PTA officers Steve Carlsberg, Susan Willman, and Diane Crayton expect this to be the largest bake sale in more than a decade. This is because the City Council, in cooperation with the Sheriff’s Secret Police, in cooperation with a vague, yet menacing government agency, in cooperation with the world government, in cooperation with the lizard people wing of the Bilderburg group, has mandated that all citizens participate in this spring’s PTA bake sale. A group of men in black suits wearing sun glasses and earpieces gathered around City Hall this morning to confirm this. “Perhaps bring some moist blueberry muffins,” one of the mysterious men announced. “Or invisible pie,” said another. “Oh, oh, oh! If you have one of those special pans that makes only brownie edges,” said another. And each of the men squealed and clapped their hands saying: “Yes! Those are the best!”

So head on down to the high school and buy and sell some tasty baked goods for a valiant cause. It’s illegal not to.

In related news, more than 200 soldiers died yesterday in the bloodiest battle yet of the ongoing blood space war. Not all have been identified, but we have learned that Corporal Waymon Davis and Sergeant Yasmine Alfonse, both residents of Night Vale, are believed to be among those killed. Officials from intergalactic military headquarters said no armistice is in sight, as they are not certain who they are fighting, what they are fighting for, and when the fighting is even happening. “Time is super relative, man,” said senior strategic advisor Jameson Archibald. “Like prrrrrrr, mind-blowing how some of the people who are fighting this war haven’t even been born yet! My head hurts just thinking about that. Spacetime, can you even believe it, just woooow!” Archibald concluded.

Why are we fighting this war and who is involved, and beyond bake sales and online crowd sourced donations, who is funding this conflict? Over the next few weeks, I will try to do my best to answer some of these questions, but beware that these questions may have no answers. Or worse, have answers that make no sense. Today we will start with what we know. We will start the story of – Eunomia.

Eunomia grew up on a farm. Her parents planted invisible all corn. All day, Eunomia would work the fields. This was the early 1800’s, so there were no gas powered tractors or tillers or combines. Eunomia would plant each invisible corn seed one by one in long rows over several acres. She enjoyed this work, because she loved the fresh air, the insects and the birds, and the dusk, her favorite moment. The stars would come out. During the late summer she would lie down in the corn fields, hidden among the tall invisible stocks of majestic corn. And she thought of all the possible worlds beyond this one. Eventually, her mother would call her home for dinner, and the next day Eunomia would dream about those worlds while culling the ripened corn, anxiously awaiting the disappearance of the sun, so she could comprehend the infinite possibilities of a life that was not this one.

On her 17th birthday, Eunomia went out to the corn field, but never returned. When her parents went to look for her, they found a large perfectly round clearing. There was no corn in this circle, only flat dirt, Eunomia’s packed lunch uneaten, her diary, her tools, and the clothing she had worn that morning, the last time anyone saw her.

In the 1980’s, librarians at the Night Vale Public Library found Eunomia’s diary, which historians had long thought to be either or legend. The librarians said they found it underneath the second floor Dr Pepper machine. A bibliophile or historian must have hidden behind the vending machine, trying to escape hungry librarians, but left the artefact behind when that person either escaped or was eaten. The librarians who found the book placed it on display in a new exhibit called “Early Night Vale Life: Quotidian scrawlings of delicious mortals”. It took many years of armed expeditions into the public library and cost many lives for historians to read this entire diary. But their brave efforts eventually paid off, as most of the diary has been transcribed or photographed. Here are a few sample entries from Eunomia’s journal.

“July 15, 1815. The star I have named Wolfgang has moved from its constellation. I believe it to be an artificial vessel. I shall send it a message somehow.

August 1, 1815. Wolfgang has grown larger and now changes colors. Tonight, it is azure. Last night it was turquoise. I predict it has seen our Earth.

September 4, 1815. Tonight I have carved a message into the corn. It is not in English, but in patterns, concentric circles connected by sharp angular lines. I have carved this message quite large. I do hope it is legible. Tomorrow morning I shall find out.”

And just below this entry, Eunomia has sketched this cornfield pattern into her diary. Her final entry was on September 5. “A man with a mirror for a face has come for me. Does not speak. Farewell.”

More on the story of Eunomia in a moment, but first, breaking news from city hall. Pamela Winchell, the city’s director of emergency press conferences, called an emergency press conference to announce, and I quote, “some crazy black bull blanks going down over here, y’all. Whooollyyy blank,” she added. Winchell was standing near a cornfield on the property of John Peters – you know, the farmer. She was covering her mouth with one hand and pointing with the other while jumping up and down. Winchell said, “Y’all have to see this mess, but also like don’t come aaanywhere near here, no way. But still like, it’s kinda beautiful with all the lights and stuff, you really have to see it but you can’t, don’t. Definitely don’t come out here, nothing to see,” she said firmly, only to continue: “Cooool, oh blank that’s raaaaad.”

City Council quickly ushered Winchell away from the microphone and said that they have formed a secret exploratory committee to investigate the lights coming from John Peters’ land. More on this story as it develops.

For weeks after Eunomia disappeared, townsfolk mourned the loss of a young and vibrant girl. The city declared her dead, and her church held a public funeral service. Her mother spoke about Eunomia’s vivid imagination and penchant for drawing and painting. Her father, through halting sobs, said Eunomia was a smart girl who loved astronomy and physics. The crowd gasped at this. Some of the congregation vocally protested saying: “He should not be accusing the dead of paganism. Eunomia’s father calmed them and said: “Science is not a fringe religion, Eunomia taught me this. She wrote about the movement of stars and planets every day. She dreamed of a time that human beings could leave this gravity and travel into deepest space. I, too, thought science was Satan’s checker board but now, thanks to my dear daughter, I think science is neat.” The congregation grumbled, but ultimately accepted that a grief-stricken parent must be given room for the madness of sorrow.

The people of Night Vale moved forward with their lives. Like all tragic loss, they remembered Eunomia, sometimes even see her, only to realize it was a shadow or a mistake of the mind. They felt sad and empty, but over time the sadness waned and the emptiness filled, as they always do.  

Her parents sold the farm and moved into the city. Consciously, they wanted to be closer to their community, but subconsciously they feared having to endure the weight of public empathy, so they mostly stayed indoors. One year after Eunomia’s physical disappearance, the memory of Eunomia had all but disappeared as well. Night Vale was back to normal. No one was thinking about Unomia that day, that anniversary. They were thinking about something else: the visitor.

More on this soon, but first traffic. Christina and Ricardo Alfonse had just exited Route 800 toward Pike Street, when they planned to turn left toward the hospital. Ricardo was driving quickly as Christina was in immense discomfort. She was eight months pregnant when contractions began only half an hour ago. Fearing the complications of an early birth, Christina did not outwardly panic, she inwardly panicked. She grew quiet and still, as her body began to convulse and her guts begun to churn. She turned to her husband and calmly stated: “Ricky, the baby’s coming.” Ricardo, having read nearly a dozen books, including “The Physiology of Pregnancy”, “The Psychology of Infancy”, and “The Anthology of Relevancy”, felt prepared for even this most unexpected of moments. Inwardly, he did not panic. Outwardly, he was a blubbering mess. He rushed his wife into the car and onto the hospital going well over the speed limit, asking Christina if she was remembering to breathe, Christina repeatedly asking Ricardo to slow down and confirmed she was breathing. A minor accident between a top secret military transport truck and a 2011 Honda CRV along Route 800 near Exit 12 had slowed the couple down by a few minutes, and during that traffic jam, Christina turned on the radio to take her mind off her body. She heard a news update about the blood space war and the tragic deaths of two Night Vale soldiers, one of whom was named Yasmine Alfonse. Christina and Ricardo Alfonse knew they were expecting a girl. They knew they would name her Yasmine, because it is a beautiful name. Ricardo laughed at the dark humor of the improbable coincidence, but Christina never laughed nor believed it to be a coincidence. They arrived at the hospital with plenty of time to spare and three hours later their daughter Yasmine was born. Christina had decided to give her a different name, but when the nurse who was filling out the birth certificate asked, Christina said “Yasmine,” as she was unable to say anything else. It was like that moment had already happened and she was only remembering it.

So, expect 15 minute delays on eastbound lanes of Route 800 near Exit 12. This has been traffic.

On the anniversary of Eunomia’s disappearance, an astronaut arrived in Night Vale. The early 19th century villages did not know what an astronaut was. So what they saw was a puffy silver humanoid with a mirror for a face. The astronaut suddenly appeared in the center of town, roughly where the Dog Park is today, and walked silently through the dusty streets. Crowds gathered and followed the stranger, all the while pointing and warmly shouting “Interloper!” in hopes that the frightening figure would show signs of benevolence.

The astronaut, bow-legged and slow, walked without speaking toward the outskirts of town. It took hours, and by the time the visitor stopped, nearly the entire city had followed. There was a greenish aura about the astronaut as they turned to face the gathered mob. The astronaut lifted their gloved hands to their neck and unlatched the helmet. There was a loud hiss and a pop, and the mask lifted. The crowd tentatively approached the stranger, and as the helmet came fully off, the townsfolk cried out in horror. The face of the visitor was nearly skeletal, a rotted corpse, long white hair peeling down the back of the skull, an incomplete set of elongated teeth visible with no lips to hide them, startled eyes ever staring with no lids to express anything else, and what was left of the skin had shriveled and yellowed.

The crowd had begun to step backward, but one woman stepped forward – a tired and pale woman approached the decomposing astronaut and said: “Eunomia?” The astronaut opened her mouth slowly and spoke in a hoarse cough. “Mother,” the astronaut said. Eunomia’s young mother touched her elderly daughter’s face. Unomia broke into dust. And the empty space suit collapsed into the ground.

More news, but first, The weather.

[“The Only Thing” by Ali Holder, http://aliholder.com/]

Dozens of astronauts appeared in Night Vale over the centuries that followed. They still occasionally do, but it has been 36 years since the last appearance. These astronauts are time travelers of sorts. They are Night Vale citizens who fight for humanity in the blood space war, but are returning home to recruit or retire. Those who have returned from battle have told us about Eunomia and her incredible leadership and diplomacy. Her death in the timeline of those fighting his war has get to occur, but in our earthly timeline she died 200 years ago in a cornfield. There is so much more to say about Eunomia and the beginnings of the blood space war, but we cannot cover all that here. It is much too complicated a story. [nervously] Plus, an empty-eyed messenger child from the City Council just showed up in my radio studio to tell me to get to the important news of the day. [gleefully] Thank you, child! Here’s an iPad, go play on Tick Tock and stop staring at me! I’m really creeped out!

[clears throat] The City Council organized a press conference this afternoon, but before it could begin, Pamela Winchell grabbed the microphone from the City Council and shouted: “Surprise emergency press conference! Hey, so a space craft flew down into John Peters’ cornfield, and these beings of astonishing structure emerged with two floating pods, and inside these pods were dead bodies! Ie was sad, but also the bodies looked pretty old, so maybe it was just their time. Sometimes that happens, you know, actually it always happens. No one has ever not died. Anyway, if you lost an elderly friend or relative, maybe come identify the bodies! Sorry for your loss.” Winchell then reached up into her hairline and pulled down a zipper that ran from her head to her waist as she opened herself, a Pamela-shaped cloud drifted up and away over the crowd, a faint voice saying: “Pamela out!” could be heard in the sky.

Several Night Vale residents came to view the bodies. One body was identified as Waymon Davis by his great great grandson Melvin. Melvin brought a daguerreotype photo of Waymon from 1980. In the photo, Waymon was 33 years old. The body Melvin identified looked to be in his sixties, but it was clearly Waymon. Christina Alfonse, holding her newborn baby in her hospital bed, saw the footage on television. When she saw the other body, she saw a woman in her seventies with Yasmine’s eyes, Yasmine’s lips, and even the same thick low forehead. Christina held her baby tight to her chest. “You are a brave woman,” she said to the infant Yasmine as she kissed her tiny cheeks.

Stay tuned next of the sound of an alarm click that cannot be turned off and a dream that cannot be awoken from. Good night, Night Vale,

Good night.

Today’s proverb: Talk to your kids about the birds and the bees. “Never look directly at birds,” you should say to them, “and bees? Don’t get me started.”

[raendown]

@followingtherivers I went in with the intention of writing something specific and ended up with something else entirely. Somehow...

Pairing: ObitoKakashi Word count: 1796 Summary: Listening to sensei is what got them mixed up in this stupid jutsu. He's never going to listen to sensei again.

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

Running Through My Head (Running Through My Head)

Worse than being annoyed by the same words over and over again was knowing that Obito wasn’t repeating them because he needed the reminder; he just liked the sound of them. Kakashi breathed slowly through his nose and tried his best to hold on to that last thread of patience. Surely there were worse situations he could have been in – near death, for instance – yet at that very moment nothing else seemed like it could possibly be worse than hearing those three words again.

Swish, flick, zip

Kakashi’s eye twitched as he heard the three fucking words again. They hadn’t even been spoken out loud. It they had been then he could have found a way to deal with it such as blocking the sound or vacating the area and thereby removing the source of his irritation. But no, rather than out loud those words had been spoken directly inside his head in Obito’s voice.

After a mission which had taken them past the borders of Suna his teammate had become enamored with the chakra strings they’d seen one of the foreign shinobi use to fight. Once they made it home Obito had begged sensei to show him how to do it and Minato had obliged with the warning that he really only knew the basics of the technique, just what he had picked up from a Suna shinobi before tensions between their villages exploded. Now armed with as much knowledge as his sensei was able to give him, Obito was putting his all in to learning the new technique.

Swish, flick, zip.

Trying to learn a new skill should have been a good thing. And it would have been if not for the other consequence which had followed them home from beyond the borders of the desert. Minato had been lecturing Kakashi on teamwork a lot more lately and he was just annoyed enough to make an effort when push came to shove, if for no other reason than to say that he had. And what had that gotten him? It had gotten him tangled up in to some really weird jutsu which connected his own mind with that of his biggest annoyance.

Obito hefted the shuriken in his hand and narrowed his eyes at the target.

Swish, flick, zip.

Even from all the way across the training field Kakashi could feel the older boy’s chakra gathering, which meant that he was gathering too much for such a delicate ability as he was trying to use. So it really wasn’t all that much of a surprise when the shuriken released and no chakra string manifested to ‘zip’ it back to its owner. Obito scowled and stomped his foot but refused to give up, reaching back in to the pouch hanging off his waist to fetch another one.

When his fingers touched nothing but empty pouch, Kakashi could hear his silent mumblings of surprise before he trotted across the field to retrieve all of his scattered weaponry. For a few moments it seemed as though there would be mental peace. Really, Obito could think about anything he wanted as long as it wasn’t those three little words that he’d been repeating to himself – and therefor to Kakashi as well – all day. It was enough to drive anyone mad, especially a young boy who was well known for having a short temper when it came to the teammate he regularly called useless.

Just as Kakashi began to relax, however, he heard them once again.

Swish, flick, zip.

“I will swish, flick, and zip your useless brains out!” Tossing down the manual he’d been trying to read, Kakashi marched across the field to step in front of Obito and shove his face up close with an intimidating scowl. His teammate looked back at him with eyes wide in confusion.

“Eh? What’s your problem, Bakashi?”

“If you think ‘swish, flick, zip’ one more time I will flick that shuriken right in to your eye socket and zip your jacket over your stupid head!”

For a moment he thought Obito would start yelling back in his face the way he always had and surprise filled him when instead the boy gave him a sheepish look, both shoulders slumping and his eyes filling up with a familiar look of guilt. He looked just the same as whenever Minato-sensei had to scold him for bothering someone.

“Oops,” Obito murmured. “Was I doing it again? I forgot you could hear me.” He toed to grass under his feet and offered a repentant grin. Kakashi stared at him, rapidly deflating. Between the two of them neither was more likely to apologize when they managed to annoy each other – which was often enough to drive Minato-sensei up the walk on a regular basis. He really hadn’t expected the older boy to give in so easily and he felt a little like a pot which had been pulled off the burner just before it’d been about to boil over.

“Uh…yeah. Good. Stop or…whatever.”

“It’s just so catchy!”

“I will end you.” Kakashi narrowed his eyes, temper flaring again in an instant, but Obito only chuckled as he skipped away to gather the scattered shuriken.

Feeling slightly off-kilter after their encounter hadn’t gone nearly the way he expected it to, Kakashi trundled back over to retrieve his book. He hadn’t spent so much time around another human being since his father died and it was as comforting as it was jarring to have so much company. There wasn’t much point to separating when they could hear each other’s thoughts even if they stood on opposite sides of the village – and it was easier for Kakashi to yell at Obito for thinking stupid things if he stayed close anyway.

Once he had settled himself down and spread his book across both knees as it had been before, however, he found himself unable to concentrate for an entirely different reason. Although Obito had actually listened for once in his life and stopped repeating that stupid phrase over and over, the effort he was going to in order to think of anything else would have been nearly audible even if their minds hadn’t been connected by some foreign jutsu. It was evident in the way his thoughts were now skipping around willy-nilly, focusing on whatever happened to pop up first. And it was annoying as hell.

Before he could do more than scowl at the pages before him, Obito was cringing over by the targets.

“Sorry!” he called. “Look, I’m trying!”

“Pick something and stick with it,” Kakashi hollered back, resisting the urge to rub at his temples. Kushina-nee kept telling him it made him look like an old man whenever he did that.

Nervous laughter floated over towards him and Kakashi rolled his eyes, hunkering down over his book, determined to read and ignore his stupid teammate.

Peace reigned for perhaps a good twenty minutes, during which Kakashi was able to lose himself in the jutsu manual he was trying to learn from. But he should have known that it was too good to be true. Just as he was getting to the most interesting part, the part he’d specifically chosen this book to learn about, he distantly felt Obito gathering his chakra again as the older boy’s voice absent-mindedly picked up a familiar chant inside both of their minds.

Swish, flick, zip.

“Really!?” This time he didn’t even bother to get up, choosing instead to simply hurl his manual across the field to smack Obito square in the nose.

“Ow! Sorry! I didn’t mean to!”

“You were supposed to think of something else!”

“I’m trying!”

“Well try harder, dead last!”

Huffing, Kakashi flopped back in to the grass so he could glare over top of his head and enjoy the sight of Obito rubbing the back of his neck guiltily. Satisfaction filled him until Obito raised his head to lock their gazes together and pull out the one weapon which he’d never dared try to use on Kakashi before: the dreaded puppy eyes.

Obito had his sad puppy eyes down well enough to sway even Kushina on a fairly frequent basis. For such a caring woman she had a heart of steel and yet somehow she melted in the face of Obito’s pathetic begging. He had not, however, tried to use such an impressive expression on Kakashi before, probably because he hadn’t thought it would have the slightest effect on the stoic boy. Even Kakashi would never have thought it would. He realized how wrong he had been the moment their eyes met.

Cute…

“What!?”

“W-what?”

Obito dropped the pleading expression in favor of staring at him in shock. “Did you just call me cute?” he demanded. Kakashi spluttered.

“No! Of course not! Why would I call you cute?”

“You did! I heard you!”

“Don’t be stupid!”

Trying very hard to ignore the hot blush spreading out underneath his mask, Kakashi rolled over and sprang up on to his feet, not looking back even for a moment as he took off across the field. Obito’s voice called after him but he was already too far away to hear anything passed the teasing tone of his words.

He made it three blocks away before a voice startled him and made him trip, almost sending him tumbling in to the corner of the closest building.

You can’t run from me, Bakashi.

Get out of my head!

Tried. Can’t. I think I like it in here, anyway. You think I’m CUTE.

No I don’t!

Picking up speed as though he could outrun his own internal monologue, Kakashi leapt up to the rooftops and threw himself across the village. Maybe if he ran fast enough he could get far, far away and really test the limits of their connection. Inside his head he could hear Obito laughing at him and it depended both his scowl and his blush, made his feet run faster, made his heart beat quicker. Whatever these weird sensations running through his body were they were an absolute nuisance.

Bakashi’s got his very first crush, Obito cooed at him.

I don’t!

Do.

Don’t!

I’m honored, really.

Shut up!

Kakashi grabbed the sides of his head and tried to shake the older boy’s voice away to no avail. His feet carried him from rooftop to rooftop in a straight line away from the training fields, hoping against hope that he could find a distance too large for this stupid jutsu to work across.

As he ran Obito continued to tease him and Kakashi turned a few harsh thoughts towards his sensei. The next time Minato-sensei asked him to work on his teamwork some more he was going to spit at the man’s feet. Nothing was worth this kind of embarrassment.

[carrieautumn-blog1]

Carrie Autumn’s 2018 October Writing Prompts #2

Carrie Autumn’s 2018 October Writing Prompts Prompt 2: A Mysterious Salesman’s Strange Wares

I woke up to the dying sun just as the rosy skies were making their violet turn. The feeble light could not hope to touch me now, I was submerged in the depths of the trees and trapped in the sunken bed of a dead river. My limbs blistered and were unable to bear my weight any longer, I recognized the poison that flowed within me. I knew my time had come and unlike the petulant humans who had stuck me I would not go to my end with arrogant, ignoble pleas or insufferable commotion. I waited quietly for death, as suits any Many-Faced Creature. The forest played its melodies kindly, though few were left to listen, and I was glad enough for that.

Then a jingling intruded upon my solitude, the sound of metal, the song of those on two legs. I uncurled my limbs, and tried to heave myself up, sometimes my size was enough to intimidate the smaller ones, but I was forced into an uneven bow. I had hoped I would have remained in isolation until the last, but if those who hunted me had somehow managed to cross the great distance I had left between us, or if another of the hostile races found me I would be given a quick end, but the most dishonorable rites. They would take apart my body and use it in their machines, no matter the disharmony it would bring my own soul or those of my kin. My heavy breaths shook my flowing tassels, they twisted in the air and told me what fate it was that approached.

A single human, without the aura of blood-thirst I was accustomed to them carrying. Perhaps they would be frightened away and forget where my body lied as the night changed to day. It was unlikely. I know my parts are worth many of the garish metal they so value, enough that they are willing to look past its cursed nature. Perhaps their kind is so enveloped in ill fortune they can no longer tell the difference, they might think it the natural order that such evil befalls them so often. If I could manage a single howl I might be able to ward him off before he takes in my condition, but the ooze of black and phosphorescent blue promises to give me away. Besides that I cannot manage more than a low rumble from the very bottom of me. I sink back to the ground, easing the ever amassing pain that has hold of me, just as the human comes upon me.

It stumbles when it finally sees me, I know that it’s eyes are susceptible to the tricks of night, they strain in the absence of their sun and fires. It is without any of these, and I am surprised he has not fallen and broken his neck on the uneven earth. He is not a warrior that I have ever seen, he carries no weapons and wear only simple cloths. Instead he carries a humble bag of sorts, perhaps his only possessions. I expect him to either flee or, if he is foolish enough, to attack. He does neither of these things. Whatever trickster spirit possesses his mind has the human address me, as if he has taken me for one of his own, or perhaps a wounded animal.

“Well I’ll be. A real, honest-to-Martha, Iambaba. You alright there? You don’t look too good.” I am no fool to trickery or fan of ill-timed mirth. I cannot guess this man’s game, but will not play a part in it. He eases himself forward, taking out a hand-fire known as a lantern. He plays with the glass and dials until a red burst lights the river bed’s hollow walls.

“Oh my. I’m guessing you’ve come from up South, now did ya. Well it might be this is your lucky day. My name’s Anderson and I am without a doubt the end to all Salesmen, the only one you’ll ever need. Where did I put that card?” It began to search it’s cloths until it touched the hat upon its head, and removed a flat paper from it’s band. “There you have it. I recently started putting them in my hat, you see. I never forget my hat, and it’s close to my most valuable item.” He tapped his head. “Course whenever it rains, or whenever I want to make a good impression I show folks just how exactly valuable it is by making a fool of myself. Those are some dinner plate eyes you got there. They’re beautiful of course.”

I hoped if I stayed quiet it would lose interest. The thought also crossed my mind that if it wandered I little closer I might be able to smother it, but my underside was too light and filled with my precious remaining wind. I growled and turned my eyes inward, but felt the human traipsing closer.

“Now I’ll be honest I’ve never done business with an Iambaba, but I’m never one to turn my back on folks in need. You ask anyone in the East or any the ones that done business with me, Anderson is a different sort of salesman. I’m honor bound to sell only to those who are the most in need of my services. Took an oath, like a doctor or a judge. That’s no shtick either, I mean it Mr.Iambaba. Ms. Iambaba. Excuse my assumptions, my mother, Martha rest her soul, said I was raised by wolves first year of my life. Said I was too rude and sent me back.” The man laughed and again my tassels sensed him as he proceeded closer, and closer. Then I heard him rifling through his meager sack. I assumed to draw his weapon, I leaned away and hissed. Letting my eyes roll forward, the man put up his empty hands. “Sorry, you’re right. You and I haven’t made any sort of deal yet.” He dropped the bag beside his two feet. He began to ramble on again about his prowess and wares. It then occurred to me, that humans were just absurd enough that this man truly thought I would make a trade with him? Even if I was willing to look past the centuries of ill-will what did this human possibly think I could want from him? Or that I could have for him? Not my parts surely, if he wanted those, he need only wait. The best thing this man could give me, if he was genuine in his assertion, was to leave me be.

“Go away.” I whispered in his tongue, the sound caused him to shiver as my winds ran over his ears.

“Well I can’t do that now. It would be against my code, as I said.” He began rubbing his ears. “I can offer you my services. I can make you a great deal, best one of your life if you don’t mind my macabre gaff there. I would only like a few minutes of your precious time.”

“There is nothing you can give me, but solitude. Your kind have nothing they could possibly offer to one such as myself.”

“You would think so wouldn’t you? I don’t pretend to be all connected, or one with anything, but I am not over exaggerating my prowess. If it please Iambaba-”

“I am not Iambaba. Do not call me such things. I am the Creature of Many Faces.”

“I’ve heard that before, forgive me for saying, but you seem to have just that one to me. It’s a legendary one, fearsome too. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have nightmares of those large red peepers.”

“You might try to mock me, but it is you is being made the fool. Your limited, linear speech is testament to your kind’s inability.”

“For certain, but I am not mocking you, Creature of Many Faces. I am trying to tell you, that you have need of what is in my bag, if you would only ask to see it.” The man lost his smile and took on a serious face. “No games, no tricks. I am Anderson the salesman who sales his wares to those in need. And I always have what one desires.” There was a flicker in the fire, and a shimmer in his tiny, beastly eye. Call me a fool, or wearied by the growing shadows in my eyes, but I began to succumb to the promise of a final surprise.

“Fine, what is it that you offer me human Anderson?” His smile returned, but I think it would not have if he could have truly given me what I wanted right then, the strength to eat him whole. Regardless he reached into the bag.

“This my friend is called by many names, as many names as you have faces. I simply refer to it as the Second Breath. It is not something I give lightly, or to any but those who have the truest need of it. It offers the most precious gift of all, Time. Life. With this you might yet live to see many mornings. I cannot predict how much time it might give you, perhaps only a few seconds. Or, perhaps, life eternal. I can tell you are not one to shy away from death, but this item also has another feature. One I think will more likely interest you. But first allow me to explain the caveat of this item. If you took this Second Breath, this second chance at life, it would be because you would take on the life of another. You’d continue out their days in their life, seeing through their eyes. It follows that they would take your place in this form, waiting on death’s front porch. I realize you’re wise enough to know this as a gamble and perhaps one that would shame you, so instead I offer you this. The chance to give second life to someone else, anything that once drew breath might live again. And it might do so in the body of your choosing. If you so wish it the Devil might find himself at home in the body of God himself, if those words mean anything to you.”

“How is it possible that you could have come across something like this?”

“Easy. I made the right trade. I told you do not underestimate the prowess of Anderson the Salesman. Everything I give comes with a cost, I do not do freebies. This too, comes with a price.”

“What would you have of me?”

“So you are interested?” I thought on it, as I could no longer make out the man’s face or the glow of his fire, as my winds had begun to flow out from beneath me, returning to the skies from which they were born.

“Do I have to know the one I would bestow this breath upon. Would I have to have known their face?”

“Not at all. It’s a very flexible thing.”

“Then I would give life to the one who died, the one who would rise again and have it in their power to slay all the humans and two leggers in the world who destroy the forests and seas. The ones who hunt down my kind for parts, and sheer the mountains down to pebbles. That is what I wish, what I desire. If that one could rise up, and kill every last one of you.”

“Then we have a deal.” He laughed, but it was a far away sound to me.

“And what is it you would have of me?” I asked with my final wheezing winds.

“Oh I have what I wanted. As I said I only wanted a few minutes of your precious, precious time.”    

[himbowelsh]

prompt if you're able: Sledge finds a Japanese child no older than five in the jungle and argues with Snafu on whether they should keep the child

AN: inspired by this picture.

This isn’t a situation he thought he’d ever find himself in.

It’s not as if Eugene dislikes children. Actually, he has no real opinion on them whatsoever — save for mild annoyance when they scream, but that’s natural. From what limited experience he has with kids, they tend to be sticky, loud, and helpless. He is not a fan of any of these qualities, so he tends to avoid children as much as possible.

It’s a tactic that’s worked for him so far. It doesn’t mean he hates kids. He doesn’t.

He just doesn’t know what to do with them.

“What do we do?” he asks; and, when he gets no reply, says it louder. “What do we do, Snaf?”

“Why're you asking me?” His companion demands, sounding just as harassed as Eugene feels. “I look like I know?”

“Well, I’ve got no clue! So if you’re just as lost as I am...” Eugene trails off, swallowing hard. He’s doing his best not to look at it.

Not it, his traitorous brain reminds him. Her.

The child in front of them doesn’t make much of an impression. Chances are, neither of them would have noticed her at all, if she hadn’t wandered out of the trees and scares them both half to death. She seemed frightened at first; until they both lowered their guns at the realization of just what they were looking at. Then they were just left staring, like the girl is a creature from another planet. Of all the things they expected to find on a scouting mission, a kid isn’t one of them.

Now, she seems rather disillusioned with them. She sits in a pile of leaves, gathering them up in her tiny fists, and glancing up at them before letting them flutter in the air around her. If Sledge didn’t know better, he’d say she’s showing off — trying to put on a show for the silly American soldiers who’ve never seen a child before, apparently.

He feels more hysterical than she looks. That makes him feel sort of pathetic.

“Do we keep her?” he demands, voice jumping in pitch. He must sound ridiculous, but he’s at a genuine loss. They didn’t teach this in basic.

Snafu turns his head slowly to look at him. “I ain’t ready to be a father, Sledgehammer.”

The worst part is, it takes Sledge a minute to realize he’s joking. Snafu’s eyes are so wide and earnest that the moment it clicks he feels like he’s been smacked. He returns the favor by smacking Snafu right back. His palm connects with his ribs, but Snafu doesn’t even flinch. “You think this is funny? Huh? What're we supposed to do with her?”

“I dunno.” Snafu takes a step out of Sledge’s range and squints at the child. “Scrawny lil’ bit, ain’t she?”

It’s true; the little girl has got less meat on her bones than Snafu himself. Her arms are like twigs, marred with scratches and bug bites. Her cheeks are hollow, and even the worn dress she’s wearing looks two sizes too big for her. Sledge wonders when the last time she ate was, and feels a flash of instinctual concern. She can’t be more than two or three. This little kid out here in the jungle, all alone... 

The war has not been kind to Okinawa’s civilians. In the constant chaos of battle, it’s hard to make out who’s the enemy and who isn’t. Sledge doesn’t think he’s killed a civilian himself, but if he did he probably wouldn’t know it. He’s seen houses be fired on indiscriminately, come across the dead bodies of women and children. The memory of the woman with her baby in her arms, sobbing over the dynamite strapped to her chest, still makes him dizzy with horror. He knows how innocent people get caught up in the atrocities of war. It happens too often. Just looking at this wide eyed child makes his stomach turn.

“We can’t just leave her,” he emphasizes, stating the obvious. “We’ve got to do something.”

“You got an idea what that somethin’ is?”

Sledge thinks for a moment, though he really doesn’t have to. “No.”

Snafu considers the child, like he’s examining apples at the supermarket. After a few seconds he drops down in a crouch, eyes narrowed at the child. Sledge wonders if he’s going to do that creepy intimidation shtick again, before he holds out one arm.

“See if she’ll come to us,” he declares, then begins to beckon the girl. “Come here. Come here, petit chou, come closer. We ain’t gon’ hurt ya. Come here, you.”

The child blinks at him with black, unimpressed eyes. She doesn’t move.

“For God’s sake,” Sledge says.

“Hush,” Snafu retorts, shuffling a step closer to her. “C’mon, baby. How old’re you, anyway?”

“She doesn’t know what you’re saying.”

“Come on now.” Snafu reaches the girl. Since he’s apparently elected to ignore his companion, Sledge sees no reason to warn him about the look in the child’s eye as he reaches out. He doubts that Snafu, the apparent baby expert, hasn’t noticed himself.

Snafu’s hand settles on her arm, and she screams.

Not just screaming. Full on wailing. It’s like the screech of a shell tearing through the night, an air raid siren going off, fire trucks racing to the scene of a disaster. Snafu stumbles back like he’s been burned, while the girl...

Well, the girl doesn’t go anywhere. She just curls into a ball and keeps screaming.

“Dammit!” Snafu hisses. “Shit! Damn! How do we shut her up, Sledge?”

“You’re asking me?”

“Sledge!”

“Fine!”

He really has no idea, so Sledge does the first thing he can think of: he empties his pockets. He’s got a tiny pencil in there, and a few bent playing cards, among other things. His most interesting possession is his worn Bible — the same one he’s studiously filled with notes since they landed. He promptly throws his Bible at the child.

(His ancient grandmother used to employ a similar method to get Sledge and his brother to shut up when they were children. This doesn’t occur to him until later.)Whether out of shock, confusion, or just plain outrage, the girl cuts herself off. Her gaze swerves from the book lying at her side, to ��Eugene, then back again. Slowly, she picks up the pocket Bible. Snafu, still on his haunches, blinks at her.“I can’t believe you just did that,” he says. Eugene stays quiet. “What’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with me? Huh? She’s stopped crying, hasn’t she?”

The child promptly flings the book right back. It bounces off of Sledge’s helmet, nearly knocking him over.

“You know, I think I like her,” Snafu says.

They wind up taking the little girl back, because there’s nothing else for them to do.

“Next town we find, we leave her there,” Burgie tells them. “We can’t have a kid hanging around and giving away our position. ‘Til then, just try to keep her quiet, alright?”

“Got it,” Sledge replies. He’s carefully not looking over his shoulder, where he knows Snafu will be bouncing the little girl in his arms. She seems to have taken a gradual liking to Snafu. He’s the only one she’ll let pick her up, and he takes advantage of this by bouncing her on his hip at every opportunity, holding her and muttering little ditties in a mixture of English and French. When Sledge pointed out that she couldn’t understand a word of it, he just smirked.

“She don’t gotta understand. She’s a kid. They like songs.” When he looked at the little girl again, there was a shade of humanity in his eyes — one Sledge had never seen before. (It only occurred to him later that perhaps he was not seeing Snafu at all, but the Merriell Shelton that existed before the war. The one who would bounce hypothetical little sisters on his knee and sing them songs; who’d play peek-a-boo; who maybe dreamed of a family of his own one day. No wonder he seemed so unfamiliar. Sledge does not know that Shelton at all.)

That night, when Snafu curls up in their foxhole, the little girl is with him. He’s made her a nest out of some old t-shirts and blankets. She curls up in it like a small dog, drawing herself into a ball and snuggling down. Even Sledge has to admit that it’s kind of cute.

He and Snafu both watch over her for a few minutes, neither sure what to say. It seems wrong, somehow, to pretend this is a normal night. This is not normal. This little girl’s life is changed forever, torn up by a war she’s too young to even understand. She is innocent of all the bloodshed; yet here she is, rescued from the woods, washed and fed, by the people her father would call enemies.

“I ain’t gonna give her a name,” Snafu says after a while. “She has one already. Ain’t fair.”

“She’ll be alright,” Sledge says, and hopes it’s true. He has to believe that God will provide for this child — the way he has not seen fit to do for anyone else on this cursed island.

Maybe, maybe. Maybe she will live a good life. A life of peace.

“Yeah,” Snafu mutters. “She will be.”

When he looks up, Sledge sees the echoes of Merriell Shelton in Snafu’s eyes, and he cannot help but wonder if the two are not one and the same.

[secondsofhappiness]

Sorry but if the Show want us to like and understand Rebecca’s character then they need to start writing her properly- I think the damage for me is already done, but if she sticks around please write her some friends, give her a love interest & move her out of Robrons orbit, I’ve seen people say the more hate we give a character the more the show will use her the same way as they always have & that frankly just fills me with dread! Come on guys if she’s staying they need to sort this 🙏

Did this come from a particular place this morning, Hannah?! Haha

The show can keep her and can change her character. Definitely. If they want to, they will. Thing is, a large of the audience aren’t too fond of her or are simply ambivalent.

Sadly, Emily despite seeming a lovely person, isn’t the strongest actress. Much like the lovely lady who played Ruby or the guy who played Max Wylde etc. If you can’t bring the acting game then you’re sadly not going to make waves or impact on a serial drama which often relies on limited takes, high drama and fast paced delivery of acting craft. The acting hasn’t been ideal and that’s a shame. I mean, Emily has hardly been given good stuff so some of it is down to that as she was so much better earlier on when Rebecca had an apparent solid character. Even she was rather insipid and irritatingly OTT, at least she felt like a character. She’s a shadow now and that’s depressing for a young female character.

Rebecca is, hands down, one of the worst characters ED has ever introduced. This is entirely aside from the Robron stuff - alone, and judged on her character as a whole, she is entirely horrendous in terms of consistency, depth and that spark you need for people to root for her. Some do but many don’t and it’s sad but I feel like it’s a little late if they intend to change her now.

I mean, they can have her make connections with other villagers but the only young males are Ross (and she didn’t have great chemistry with him), Pete (and really, those two together would be blander than rice) and Joe… and no WAY would that work. Joe is a really solid character (developing but solid) and Ned is a dynamic actor so he needs someone like Charley as Debbie as a counterpart. They work incredibly well together now their characters don’t seem like they’re embroiled in some sub par 50 Shades. Charley is a very dynamic actress too so it works. Put Joe next to Rebecca and it’s kind of laughable.

I don’t know what their intentions are with Rebecca as a character but I don’t really care for any of The Whites enough to ponder over her future or the devastation the family have gone through. I just don’t care. I don’t care that she’s waking up from a coma to find she doesn’t have a family because I didn’t care for the family in the first place. I AM however enjoying Lachlan. He’s a fascinating and albeit twisted and horrifying dude but he’s interesting and Thomas is a bloody great actor with great potential.

So yeah, I don’t know ANY of the actors and my judgement isn’t based on them when I judge the characters in terms of likability and who I choose to focus on. I mean, I know very little about Emma Atkins as she’s incredibly private but I love the HELL out of Charity Dingle because she’s a NIGHTMARE but she has layers and complexity and she’s so damn funny. Charity sparkles on screen whether she’s being good or bad… sadly Rebecca as a character lost that spark a few weeks in and was turned into a flip flopping mess of a character who is now an empty shell with limited connections to the village, few who care about her and little to no personality except what people tell us about her and there’s a rule in fiction - show not tell - and they’ve failed consistently with her character to do this.

The difference is with Faith and Lydia and Joe and the other newbies. We’re SEEING their depth and quirks. Like we know that Joe likes chess now but not because someone told us, but because it was used as a way to bond with Noah, it shows that's he's focused and logical and that this has perhaps been a way for him to escape and it works. Like Lydia, we weren’t told that she was a grief counsellor and that’s it … she actively pursued this with others, related her love for her pet to her past heartbreak in a scene where two women shared their grief. All of that is GOOD characterisation and good writing… with Rebecca were told she’s good cool taste or is a feisty independent woman who can fix cars and make money but at every turn she’s freaking out because her car breaks down and she’s a damsel in distress and then consistently running to others for help with business…. so any trait we’re expected to understand is quashed pretty quickly. I don’t want to be told that she likes cool music or white wine spritzers or is a travel guru etc. I want to SEE her actively do these things to feel anything for a character.

I think the worst thing is that we’re to believe she’s sweet and trusting and kind and we’re supposed to feel empathy but sadly she has been written as the opposite. She’s schemed, lied, insulted, manipulated… and most of my favourite characters are this way (aka Charity and Rob) but they have never been painted as saints. These characters like Rob or Charity have depth so that when they do bad things, there is an understanding why and that’s followed through so you root for them to grow and develop and be good at times. If a character who does bad things is never accepted as such by writers and is written as someone we should be enamoured by because they’re such a good person… it doesn’t work. That’s not characterisation.

So yeah, I don’t really care what they do with her character. They’ve NAILED so many of the newbies (both male and female) this year and I LOVE so many of them dearly but that’s because we’re given real layers.

Faith is good but she’s also tricky and feisty to a fault and has made difficult and damaging choices in her past but we SAW why this was and how she became who she is so despite some missteps or her being a bit balshy and nightmarish at times, we feel for her and we like her for it.

Joe is another one. He’s done some bad stuff. He’s a bad dude at times but we’re slowly finding out that it’s because he was pretty much abandoned as a kid, had his family taken from him and you can understand his vitriol for the Dingles. You don’t excuse his actions but you understand on some level but what we’re being treated to (slowly but surely) is a human insight. He’s cut throat and devious and ruthless but he also has a childlike quality to him. He can be frightened, he has shown some level of compassion for Noah, he has an odd but compelling relationship with a father figure, he has been shown to be so much more, all the while consistent to his character and so he’s INTERESTING and you want to learn more.

All in all, Rebecca is a car crash (no pun intended!) and I can barely muster any energy to give a damn what happens to her. She’s sadly just another White I want to bugger off!

[buckyscrystalqueen]

Taking The Shot: Part 7

Pairings: Negan x Reader

Warnings: Swearing, angst, fluff, typical Walking Dead stuff, attempted murder

Word Count: 5,244

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Is that everything?” Negan asked that night as you carried your record player into his bedroom. You shook your head as he shoved a tote box of baby clothes under his bed.

“Just have my box of albums I didn’t want to drop or break.” You looked around the room at the collection of stuff; your two bags of clothes and not much else, his things already in their proper place and the three other large tote boxes that hadn’t been stored away yet. “How do we have so much shit?” You asked with a laugh and Negan groaned as he stood up and glared at you.

“Why? Because SOMEONE fucking decided to clear out half of a fucking baby store of clothes into my Goddamn truck.” He chuckled as he grabbed your hips around the black travel turntable you had found. You feigned innocence and scoffed with a knowing smile.

“God, Negan why would you do something like that?” He swatted his hand on your ass and you squeaked and laughed.

“Pain in my fucking ass.” He grumbled as he kissed your forehead, shaking his head back and forth before taking the record player out of your hands. “Go fucking get your shit. I wanna go to fuckin’ bed baby girl.” With a nod you turned around and headed back to your room for the very last time with a small smile on your face.

As you strolled through the empty, poorly lit halls you bit your lip and giggled slightly as you thought about the way your life had turned out, coming from being alone to having a family in the course of three months. If someone had told you that this is what your life would look like when you dropped out of the tree that night, you would have shot them under the assumption that they were insane. As you walked past the wives room, you didn’t even notice that the door was closed but the sound of someone tapping on the door caught your attention. You walked over to it and listened for a moment.

“Sherry?” you called out slightly, wondering if she had decided to make the poor choice of trying to go back to Dwight. When she didn’t respond, you pulled the door open. You expected to find one of the wives but instead you came face to face with reanimated, glassy eyed Amber. “Fuck!” You shouted as you tried to slam the door closed but before the latch found its home, she managed to lunge for you, wedging part of her body against the door frame. You spun out of her grasp and slammed your back against the door, trying to stay out of her reach and use your body weight to keep her in the room unsuccessfully.

“Negan!” You screamed as you fought the opposing force, compelling yourself to remain calm. You felt an unexpected bang against the door behind your back, causing you to slide on the floor a bit and you grunted at the impact. “Fucking fuck… NEGAN! FUCKING SOMEONE!” You could feel your boots sliding slowly across the floor as the sound of Amber’s guttural hiss filled your mind, fear began to choke the life from you. Panic flooded your body and your stomach turned. You couldn’t help but think of your child as tears began rolling down your cheeks. “NEGAN!” You were just about to give up and run when the sound of boots rounded the corner. “There’s at least two! I can’t…” You told Negan, Simon and another two crew members as your boots slid another half an inch on the tile floor, allowing Amber’s corpse out a little bit more.

“Count of three, run to your fucking room.” Negan said as he closed the distance between you and the corner he just came around. “1… 2… 3!” He raised Lucille above his head and you bolted away from the door. You heard the crack of the bat connecting with Amber’s skull as you ripped open the door and ran into your old room. You slammed the door behind you and had just enough time to grab the small trash can by your dresser before you hurled. You collapsed on the floor and your body trembled as the thought that that could have been how you died; how your child could have died flashed through your mind causing you to be sick once more. After a few minutes, the door flew open, causing you to yelp as Negan stormed in.

“Hey, it’s just me. Fuck, you’re ok, sweetheart.” He said as he crossed the room in a couple long strides before falling to his knees in front of you. You threw yourself into him as sobs wracked your body. He pulled your legs around his waist, wrapped his arms around your hips and with a slight grunt, stood up. 

“Keep your face in my shoulder.” He said protectively as he hiked you up on his hips a bit more and headed for his room, closing your door behind him. You squeezed your eyes closed and tucked your face into his neck not wanting to see what happened to the wives.

“Take them the fuck outside and fucking burn ‘em.” He said to someone as he carried you down the hall grabbing Lucille from Simon as he went. Other than your sobs, the two of you remained quiet the rest of the way to the room. When he finally kicked the door closed behind him, he laid you on the bed, giving you the once over as he took off your boots and jeans.

“I heard tapping….” You said as you pulled off your bra and scooted across the bed, shaking your head in an attempt to get Amber’s eyes out of your head. “I thought…”

“Baby, it’s over. It’s all fucking over.” As he was about to get into bed, there was a knock at the door. “Not now.” He called out, lifting the covers so the two of you could get under them.

“Boss, you’ll want to see this.” With an aggravated groan, he walked over to the door, not caring that he was in just his boxers and pulled it open. Simon handed him a folded piece of paper and nodded, then turned on his heel and left without another word. Negan closed the door and came back over to the bed, got under the covers with you and unfolded the paper. You laid your head on his chest to see what the paper was.

With her moving in, we didn’t want to face Lucille. God forgive us.

“Fuck.” He grumbled and you turned into his chest as guilt washed over you.

“This is all my fault.” You cried as he dropped the note on the floor and pulled you into his side.

“Listen to me, baby girl. This is not your fucking fault. Those fucking dipshits did this to their Goddamn selves because their fucking feelings got hurt because I don’t fucking love them the way I fucking love you. Boo-fucking-hoo. If they honestly fucking thought that I would fucking kill them because I fucking love you then that’s their fucking problem. They would have been just fucking fine but THEY made the fucking choice to drink the fucking Kool-Aid. None of this fucking shit is on you.”

“Baby they were your wives!” you said as you looked up at him and he shrugged.

“Fucking and? They were fucking warm bodies until I fucking found you. The only fucking woman… fuck the only two Goddamn people that mean fucking anything to me in the fucking world are in this fucking bed with me. I fucking fight for this fucking place now for you and for our fucking kid. I fucking do this for our crazy, fucking insane, definitely narcissistic, slightly fucking sociopathic family that I wouldn’t trade the fucking world for. Everybody else can suck my fucking dick.”

“I am not a narcissist or a sociopath.” You grumbled as you wiped the tears off your face. “I’m a Goddamn angel.”

“The fuck you are!” He chuckled as he flipped off the light and scooted down onto his pillow more. “If you’re a fucking angel then I’m Goddamn fucking Mother Teresa.”

“You know what I just realized? We are like the real life versions of fucking Harley Quinn and the Joker.” Negan laughed as he wrapped his limbs around you and pulled you close.

“Yea, I can fuckin’ see it. You’d look fucking hot as fuck in those fucking shorts, too.” You laughed as he kissed your forehead and you buried your face in his chest.

“It would make it a lot fucking easier for you to kiss my fucking ass, too.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After the incident with the wives mass suicide, it took almost a month before the community got over the loss of the 5 women. The truth behind their death was made known the day after and though it took some time, the community stopped pointing fingers at you and Negan behind your backs and realized it was just the wives making a rash decision in the heat of the moment.

Life at the Sanctuary slid into a normal routine for you. Mornings were spent, for the most part, on runs and collecting supplies from Alexandria, the Hilltop and the self-proclaimed Kingdom. Afternoons found you in the gun range with Arat, giving her every ounce of knowledge you knew about long distance shooting. She was a natural as you had been, understanding the mathematics of it easily. By the time you hit your fifth month of pregnancy, (and Negan’s limit of taking you on runs) she was as good as you were.

Evenings were spent with Negan; the two of you spending time together away from the rest of the community as he had when the other wives had been present. Only with there only being one wife and said wife being pregnant, you both could feel the slight shift in the community and their feelings on it. They were still afraid of him; following the rules to the letter, kneeling when both of you walked into the room and cowering in fear when they saw Lucille but there was a new higher level of respect at seeing the more ‘human’ side of him; a side they hadn’t seen before you and the baby came around. Before you knew it, you were only weeks away from meeting your bundle of joy.

“Would you ever… fuckin’ like… want to fucking leave here?” Negan asked hesitantly one evening just after curfew while you lay between his legs in bed watching a movie. You looked over your shoulder at him as his finger’s danced across your bump. His eyes were trained on your stomach, and his brow was slightly furrowed in concentration as his wheels spun.

“Well… fuck I don’t know. Why?” He sighed as he laid his hands flat on your round stomach and your child rotated in the tiny space towards his touch. He shrugged slightly as he dragged his eyes up to you and you saw a slight fear in his eyes.

“I think the fucking prick is planning on fucking staging a fucking coup.” You turned as best as you could and your heart skipped a beat.

“How do you know that?”

“I fucking felt it when I fucking went out there today; his fucking defiance. I can fucking shut it down but then I fucking wondered if getting you and the baby the fuck out of here would be the better fucking option.” Your eyes fell from his and your brows wrinkled at the bridge of your nose as you thought, weighing the options for only a moment before you looked back up at him.

“Do we have a couple weeks or is this a pack up and get the fuck out of dodge thing?” He sighed, shrugged and shook his head.

“Best bet? Get the fuck out of fucking dodge.” You nodded slowly.

“I want Simon and Arat to go, best of the best. Carson too just until the baby is born.” Before Negan answered there was a knock at the door.

“Yea?” Negan said without moving to get up; knowing how difficult it was to get you up quickly. Simon walked in holding a walkie out in front of him as he stepped into the room.

“Boss, fucker from Gavin’s community wants to fucking talk to (Y/N).” You looked up at Negan as he reached out and grabbed the antenna of the walkie-talkie.

“Shut the fucking door but fucking stay in here.” Negan said as he tossed the box higher in his hand, pausing for a moment as Simon shut the door before he responded. “Fuck do you want?” he demanded angrily. You heard the radio crackle slightly before the man answered.

“I wish to extend an offer of asylum for your wife until the child is born. Guarantee the child’s safety in such a cruel world.” You and Negan looked at each other for a moment.

“Time to get out of dodge.” You took the radio from Negan’s hand and cleared your throat. “Can you give me a day to decide? Leaving my husband is something I would never do without taking a little time to decide.”

“I will give you one day.” The man responded immediately and you pushed yourself off Negan’s legs with his help. “I will need an answer by sundown tomorrow however the offer will be removed from the table at that time.”

“Thank you for your generous offer. I will be in touch.” You turned off the walkie-talkie as you swung your legs over the bed while Negan got up and started pulling the four totes of baby stuff from under the bed.

“Simon, we are fucking leaving tonight. Prick is fucking planning a fucking ambush and I want my fucking family safe. I want the fucking pick-up gassed, packed with fucking guns, ammo and every extra gas can we have in the bed and fucking parked out back now… fucking quietly. Pack your fucking shit, you’re fucking coming too and we are leaving within fucking 20 minutes.” Simon nodded and ran out the door.

“I got our stuff.” You said as you got up. Negan tossed you a large army green duffle and nodded.

“I got fuckin’ Arat and she can fucking grab water and food. I’ll fucking help Carson with emptying the fucking infirmary.” He walked forward, put his hand around the back of your neck and kissed your forehead. “You stay in this fucking room until I fucking come back, do you fucking understand me?” You nodded and leaned up to give him a chaste kiss.

“Be quick baby. They could be out there waiting for us now.”

“I fucking expect it.” He said as he turned and headed toward the door; grabbing Lucille and your hand gun on the way. “I love you.” He said when he got to the door, pausing for a moment to look back at you.

“I love you too, baby. Be careful.” He nodded and ducked out the door. You spun in place and started ripping open dresser drawers, shoving every article of clothing the two of you owned into the large duffle bag. You focused on your breathing to keep calm, not wanting to forget something that could be essential down the road as you stripped the room of hidden weapons, bathroom products, and the four cat statues and your two cat stuffed animals that you and Negan had collected on runs; essentially removing most of the evidence that either of you existed other than your record player, albums and the small DVD collection you had built in the past year.

“You ready, baby girl? Negan asked 15 minutes later as you were pulling the strings of the bag tight and you nodded at him and Simon.

“I just need help with my boots.” Negan nodded as he pointed Simon to the boxes on the bed.

“Those are fucking essential.” He growled as he grabbed your boots off the floor and tossed the strap of the duffle over his shoulder. “Send Arat up to grab one and I’ll fucking get the other two. Keep your fucking eyes on Carson. I don’t fucking trust him as far as I can throw him but we fucking need him until the baby is born.” Simon nodded as you sat down on the bed and Negan quickly tugged your socks and boots on over your jeans.

“Babe, we are gunna be fine.” You reassured as Arat came in and grabbed a tote, her own rifle slung over her shoulder. The two of you nodded at each other in appreciation.

“I’m fucking allowed to be fucking worried, princess.” He grumbled as he finished tying your boot. He stood up and took your hands, pulling you off the bed and into his arms. “You’re my fucking wife and this is our fucking child.” You pulled back away from him and smiled with a slight tilt of your head.

“And you are doing what needs to be done to protect us. We have a slight upper hand right now, the two best snipers in the world, a doctor, our best fighter and a fucking crazy protective daddy with his mistress, Lucille.” He chuckled slightly before he pulled away and grabbed the last two boxes. You grabbed your rifle and tossed it over your shoulder, taking one last look around the room before grabbing two pillows, and the blanket. With one final glance, you turned off the lights; leaving your home behind with a few tears shed. 

The two of you walked the short distance to the back door silently, doing your best to not alert the community to your abandonment. When you got outside, you went straight to the passenger door of the dual cab pick-up and climbed in while Negan, Simon and Arat finished packing the truck bed, covering it securely with a tarp before wordlessly getting in the truck with Dr. Carson. 

“Be fucking ready for fucking anything.” Negan said as he handed you your hand gun, laying one across his own lap before starting the truck. “You stay the fuck down.” He demanded as he glanced at you and put the truck into gear. With a quick nod, you lay down sideways awkwardly on the front seat, your body shaking with your nervousness.

The gun shots began nearly immediately as Negan headed for the back fence. You squeezed your eyes closed and covered your stomach as he gunned it. You could hear the engine roar as metal pings and gun shots rang out followed by the crash of the metal fence. Negan whipped down the road, dodging walkers and people alike as he fought to keep his family safe. Time seemed to slow as you curled into yourself and waited for the commotion to stop. 

You heard Simon yelp from the back seat in pain but you couldn’t turn to look at him out of fear as a few loud bangs against the front of the truck startled you. What seemed like hours later but was only realistically a few minutes, the gun fire died away but Negan continued to race away, heading east away from the communities toward the highway. You jumped slightly when he put his hand on your head and you looked up at him with tear filled eyes.

“It’s over.” He said softly with a nod. You nodded back and forced your shaky body up right. “Everyone good?” He asked with a glance in the rearview mirror to the three people in the back seat.

“Simon has a shoulder wound but it isn’t serious. I’m fine.” Carson responded.

“Arm got grazed pretty good but I’m alright.” Arat said as she ripped off the sleeve of her shirt to tie it around the lower part of her arm. You nodded at Negan when he looked over at you and you leaned forward to look him over.

“You alright baby?” He nodded as a smile crossed his face and he reached across the seat and took your hand with a sigh of relief.

“I don’t know how the fuck we just pulled that fucking shit off without much damage but we fucking did it. I fucking thought that fucking wall of them would be an issue.” You squeezed his hand in response.

“Well I don’t know about you two but fucking thank you guys for gettin’ me the hell out of there too.” Arat said and Carson and Simon stated their gratitude as well as the interstate came into view.

“So where are we going?” You asked as Negan traversed the car littered on-ramp. He shook his head and sighed.

“No fucking idea. Southwest into the fucking mountains for sure; find a fucking house or maybe a fucking hotel or a fucking ski lodge somewhere. We’ll fucking figure it out as we fucking go.” The three people in the back mumbled their approval and you grabbed Negan’s pillow off the floor, propping it against the window and laying your head down.

“Just wake me when we get there.” You yawned. Negan chuckled and squeezed your hand.

“You ass will be up in like an hour to fucking pee so shut the fuck up.” You let go of his hand and whacked his arm as Simon laughed from the back seat.

“You shut the fuck up. Simon don’t fucking encourage him.” You looked over at your husband and he smiled at you. “Shut up.” You said, returning his smile before childishly sticking your tongue out at him. He took your hand once more, his fingers lacing with yours and you lay back against the pillow, falling asleep almost immediately.

--------------

None of you realized how difficult it would be to leave in the middle of the night the way you did with no preparation at all but with only a little bickering and some hormonal tears you found the perfect house that was at one point a bed and breakfast in the mountains. It was surrounded by a 7 foot tall thick wood fence and it had a fancy iron gate somewhere outside of a town called Boone, North Carolina.

It was the perfect place- two stories with five bedrooms, running water and solar panels on the roof. Off the master bedroom on the second floor, there was a little balcony that made the perfect perch for a sniper. It also had a gorgeous wrap around porch, an untaken care of garden, and a storm cellar that had quite a few jars of canned fruits and vegetables in mason jars left behind from owners that had long since abandoned their property. It had taken three days to find but it couldn’t have come at a better time.

The five of you had stopped at every single grocery store, Walmart, pharmacy, baby and gun store you could find between the Sanctuary and the new house; collecting enough supplies to last your little group at least a year so you would be covered for a long time so you could get completely settled in turning this new house into the best functioning home it could possibly be.

A week after you arrived, you went into labor and after a day of hell, you gave Negan the little girl he always wanted. He held her for the first two days straight; refusing to give her up for anything other than to be fed. You were amazed at how he had taken to parenthood and it suited him. On day three, you had to nearly pry her from his hands to let her honorary aunt and uncle and the doc hold her but he hovered by and watched like a hawk. It warmed your heart that there could be something so precious and good in the world that seemed so bleak most of the time.

“I told you it was a fucking girl.” He beamed as he sat next to you on your bed holding his precious two week old little princess in his arms. “Are you abso-fucking-lutely sure you like Hope?” He asked for the hundredth time about the name he chose as he looked up at you and you giggled.

“Yea, baby. I’m ‘abso-fucking-lutely’ sure I like Hope. It’s fitting.” He nodded and looked back down at his sleeping daughter.

“Fuck, I don’t want to have to fucking leave her to fucking reinforce this Goddamn fence.” He complained.

“Love, you have to. I can’t help just yet other than being on the damn roof and we need it done so we have one less thing we have to fucking worry about.” With a groan he forced himself off the bed and laid Hope down in the bassinet you had picked up on your way here. Once he was completely satisfied that she was ok in the middle of the bed on her back, he leaned down and kissed the top of her head before kneeling on the bed to do the same with you. He rested his forehead against yours and sighed with a smile on his face.

“God, you’re fucking amazing, mama. I love you so fucking much.” You rested your hand on his cheek for a moment with a hummed laugh.

“I love you, too, baby.” You gave him a chaste kiss before he pushed himself off the bed to head out and get to work. When you had first moved in, Negan and Simon agreed that the wood fence wouldn’t stand a chance if a herd of any size came through and with a newborn, simply paying attention to your sound level wasn’t much of an option to prevent that from happening.

There was a company roughly 20 minutes away that made steel storm shutters for hurricanes and the first day you had moved in, the two men and Arat had gone and cleared the place out of every sheet, screw and power tool they had while you and Carson cleaned the house. With a sigh, you got up off the bed, closed the windows and your bedroom door, grabbed your rifle and the baby monitor and headed out onto the porch to watch the group work while Hope slept. You shivered slightly against the cool autumn air and exchanged the baby monitor for one of Negan’s cigarettes on the balcony rail.

With you keeping watch and four people working, it only took four hours to wrap both sides of the wood in the large sheet metal and with a whole lot of ‘fucks,’ and growls of aggravation, the iron gate that was at the front of the driveway was wrapped with the same material. Pleased with himself, Negan stood in the front yard long after the other three had gone inside and surveyed his work. With a small chuckle, you headed down with your happily fed and changed daughter to bring him some water.

“Looks good, daddy.” You called out to him and he turned and looked at you with a shrug.

“I think I may take a fucking page out of Alexandria’s book and put up those fucking wood beams. There’s a fucking lumber yard in town so I’ll fucking go check that shit out tomorrow. Thanks baby girl.” He said as he plopped down next to you on one of the other rocking chairs and took the water from your hand. The two of you sat in silence for a while, looking at the improved fence.

“You’re doing good, baby.” You looked over at him and smiled. He chuckled and nodded.

“Had you fucking asked me a fucking year ago if I fucking thought this shit is where we would fucking end up I’d’ve fucking punched you.”

“Well aren’t you fucking glad we have it now?” You asked as you rocked and he hummed.

“Yea baby. You fucking make me one fucking happy, lucky man.” Movement out of the corner of your eye caught your attention and you turned to look to see what it was. Your stomach dropped as a man walked up your driveway with a crossbow.

“Negan…” Your hand flew out and grabbed his arm and when his eyes found what you were looking at he lurched from the chair and grabbed Lucille from where she was leaning by the door.

“Hey, neighbors.” The younger man called out cheerily as you slowly got up from the chair, covering your daughter as best as you could with your arm while you headed for the front door. Negan stormed down the porch steps.

“Stop right fucking there!” He called out as he pointed the bat at the man while you nervously called into the house for Simon. “The fuck do you want?” You watched the man freeze, put one hand in the air, and lower the crossbow down.

“Whoa! Look man, I don’t want any trouble, OK? I just heard the drills all morning and decided to check it out. I’m the only one who has lived in a 30 mile radius since this started.” Simon came out with his gun drawn and took a quick look at the situation before he side stepped in front of you and Hope. “How fucking many of you fucks are there?” Negan asked and the man took a hesitant step back from your very intimidating husband.

“Just me and my girl; that’s all.”

“Alright, you stay the fuck away from my girls. If you need fucking help with the dead pricks, we’ll fucking help out. Other than that, for right fucking now I don’t fucking know you therefore I don’t fucking trust you.” You looked at the man, who was absolutely petrified, shook your head and concocted a plan almost instantly.

“Go fucking tell his ass to be nice and to remember how the fuck we got in this situation in the first fucking place with his fucking attitude.” You hissed at Simon. He nodded, ran down the porch over to Negan and passed your message on. You could almost hear your husband’s eyes roll as he looked over his shoulder at you and you pointed at your daughter. He narrowed his eyes before turning back to the man.

“My wife would fucking like you to know that she fucking intends on being civil.” He said as he turned to glare at you once more. You nodded in approval and looked at the stranger who bobbed his head towards you quickly as he began to walk backwards.

“Yea, you got it. Shit, if you need me, I’m down the road half a mile. Mailbox says Cane.” Without another word, he spun on his heel and took off. The men turned around to walk back to the house and you shook your head.

“You’re an asshole.” You told Negan who simply shrugged.

“Don’t fucking want him near my fucking girls.” He rested Lucille by the door once more, took Hope from your arms and sat down casually on the rocker.

“Yea, you may not but you have no fucking idea if he just lied to you on how many people are with him nor do you know how many weapons he has. He’s obviously from around here so he could be useful to us.” Negan huffed and shrugged.

“Still don’t fucking want him near my girls.”

Part 8

[theseventhhex]

Dead to a Dying World Interview

Dead to a Dying World

Photo by Kathleen Kennedy

Dead to a Dying World’s ‘Elegy’ is a foretelling of a post-human world which explores themes of loss, grief, and the dawn of a new ecology through the eyes of a lone wanderer. The last human grieves the end of humanity, reflecting on the temporal insignificance of man and the sixth extinction caused by the Anthropocene – the end of our kind brought about by our own hubris, greed, and desire for power over one another. ‘Elegy’ marks the third chapter in the trilogy, which explores our relationship to our world by reflecting on our past, present, and impending future. Produced by Billy Anderson, ‘Elegy’ stands as one of the most riveting productions from the acclaimed producer in recent times. The album sees the band’s seven full-time members welcoming contributions from a small cast of guest musicians, including Thor Harris (ex-Swans, Thor & Friends), Jarboe (ex-Swans), Dylan Desmond (Bell Witch), and Emil Rapstine (The Angelus), Pablo C. Urusson (Sangre de Muerdago), and Tim Duffield (ex-Sans Soleil). The new contingent of guests helps elevate the narrative of ‘Elegy’ to a new plateau… We talk to the band about experiencing loss, taking risks and escaping the pandemonium in life…

TSH: Talk us through the band’s recording experience as you readied ‘Elegy’…

James: It was different from every other album we’ve done in that at no point were we all in the same room together. Luckily, the endeavour of writing with people all over the country prepared us well for such a situation. We have finally learned to give ourselves enough time in the studio for embellishments and ideas. Billy always keeps us on track and has wonderful input.

TSH: What sort of narratives and themes were you feeling compelled to express with this album?

James: The overarching theme is certainly grief. I, personally, am feeling this more and more each day. It seems clear that we aren’t, as a species, going to mobilise in a fashion large enough to stop the coming irreversible changes. How do you plan for a future that science says is so uncertain? I don’t know but here we are. A lot of that sentiment went into the album.

Sean: I feel like a lot of these themes manifested on a much more personal level with ‘Elegy’ as well. Grief not just for a dying world, but for our own humanity.

TSH: It’s been noted some of you experienced great loss during the lead-up to this release – in what ways did this impact the writing process?

Mike: Everything must die. Even the ideas of who we are and what we think we know about life. It's a process though, and in my opinion real loss is one of the most challenging things anyone can experience. It's extremely difficult to fully express how far reaching a loss can impact one's life even to our closest friends and family. I think music allows us to get close to expressing the emotional turmoil, or at the very least it's a cathartic way to step back and work through it all.

TSH: When you referenced the ancient past for this record, what ideas were you intrigued by?

James: I’ve always been intrigued by the ancient world. When people worshipped the things they needed to stay alive: worshipping the land, the rain or the sun. We’ve lost that largely as a species. It’s something we need to return to, desperately.

Sean: These are truths that indigenous cultures have long known, before settlers arrived and homogenised the world. Unfortunately we are still living in that world borne from such genocide and oppression. Returning to these ancient ideas must be inherently tied to dismantling white supremacy and settler colonialism.

TSH: Talk us through your intentions in opening with the lighter tones of ‘Syzygy’ and then delivering the mighty ‘The Seer's Embrace’…

Sean: We sought to be much more deliberate with our musical intentions within ‘Elegy’ than any of our previous efforts. The musical juxtaposition between both ‘Syzygy’ and ‘The Seer’s Embrace’ is undeniable, but more so than that we wanted to challenge any expectations or presumptions of what was to come. ‘Syzygy’ has a foreboding emotional weight to it that can feel inescapable. It sets the tone for what we wanted to explore through ‘Elegy’ as a whole, as well as being upfront about our musical intent. It can be easy to see our shorter, lighter pieces as breath from what we typically do, but we seek to challenge that assumption altogether.

TSH: What were the key factors in getting ‘Empty Hands, Hollow Hymns’ to sound so concise and refined?

James: I have to hand it to Mike. He really pushed for the call and response vocal part while some of us didn’t quite get. It worked out beautifully. As to the rest of the piece we spent much more time making sure the parts worked cohesively, much closer to Sean’s vision on our first record than ‘Litany’.

TSH: Was it rewarding to use this album to force deeper questions of yourselves?

Mike: Indeed. Asking deeper questions of myself is always part of the writing process. If I can help the listener achieve the same sort of thing then I feel like I’ve done what I set out to do.

James: It’s definitely made me think about how I live day to day into perspective about how much more I could personally do to help stop the impending cataclysms.

TSH: Moreover, how vital is it for the band to continuously take risks and push boundaries?

Mike: I feel that it's essential to take risks and push boundaries. That's the only reason I care to make music in the first place and the only way I know I'm growing as a person and an artist.

James: I cannot stand just walking the same well-worn territory again and again. Always push the envelope. Sometimes you win. Sometimes it’s a mess. Nobody dies. It’s fun.

Sean: Through any creative process there will always be expectations or limitations, and we have always outwardly challenged them in any way we can. However, the most challenging boundaries to push will always be the ones we’ve placed on ourselves.

TSH: Was there a specific type of balance and natural harmony that you feel defines your band’s ethos?

Mike: If anything I would say it’s our combined styles, interests, and influences that create our ethos. Balancing all of those unique traits results in something original or unexpected and authentic.

TSH: How pleasant a factor is it to know that this band inspires and keeps you connected with other amazing musicians?

Mike: I am very aware of how privileged I am to make music with such amazing people. The fact that we have met and made music with so many other inspiring musicians has been a real honour and something I never take for granted.

James: Now that we are so spread out its good just to spend time together and it’s an honour to meet and play with so many talented and pleasant musicians along the way.

Sean: It is always such an honour to be surrounded by such passion. We’ve met and worked with so many fantastic people and tremendously talented musicians over the past decade. It truly is such a testament to the strength of community through music.

TSH: Does possibly soundtracking in the future still intrigue you?

Mike: That’s a very exciting idea and one that I think we would strongly embrace given the right opportunity.

James: James Cameron we’re looking at you.

TSH: What does the band bond over and connect over most whilst on tour?

Mike: I would have to say our varied influences, interests, and lives. Everyone brings a unique perspective to the table and we all very much appreciate and respect those elements from each other.

James: We try to build in some field trips along the way. It helps to spend some time with each other that isn’t just hustling to spend four extra hours at the venue staring at our phones.

TSH: What were the highlights with your time spent in Grand Canyon National Park recently?

James: I drove the van overnight from Albuquerque direct to the South Rim, so I was pretty delirious. Just as we arrived a snow storm came blazing through. The abyss was swirling, filled with fog, and freezing rain was spilling down from the sky. It was magic.

TSH: Given all the chaos and pandemonium in the world, which attributes in life would you say bring you most bliss and clarity?

Mike: Just spending time with my family and friends and helping out wherever possible. We all come up together, ya know.

James: The natural world always tamps down the noise and harsh realities of the modern world. Falling water and towering trees offer an iota of relief.

TSH: Finally, what sort of challenges and exploration do you relish as you look ahead as a band?

Mike: With the trilogy closed out we are totally unbound by a working concept and the idea of labels or genres. I can't wait to push our personal limits and see where things end up.

James: Probably something self-indulgent either that or syrupy pop.

Dead to a Dying World - “Empty Hands, Hollow Hymns”

Elegy

[secdino]

Wk 8 Lecture: Main Points

Root Cause

When something bad happens we perform a root cause analysis to identify the source of a fault or problem. As humans, we like to place blame on one cause only, being ignorant to the presence of multiple factors. The most common root causes people like to ‘identify’ are:

Human/Operator Error - it’s easy to blame the last person to interact with the system as the ‘problem’ can simply be removed by firing them.

Culture - there’s no real way to fix culture and as a result there’s no direct consequences either.

System - blaming an external factor (the creators of the system) can redirect scrutiny away from the true cause of the problem. Complex systems are difficult for others to understand.

Human Weaknesses

If we didn’t know enough human weaknesses before, here’s more!

Honesty - humans can’t possibly be honest all the time, we’ll often lie without knowing it. When we create a lie and follow through with it, we often end up believing that lie to be the truth.

Misdirection and Limited Focus - our inability to focus on multiple things at once makes us highly susceptible to misdirection, so we end up looking at the wrong things.

Logically Important vs Psychologically Salient - in a nutshell, what we should be looking at vs what seems to be most interesting. This weakness is exploited by magicians and social engineers (and more).

Similarity Matching - if people feel whatever is currently happening to them has happened before, they are very likely to react in a same or similar way (predictable behaviour is easy to exploit). 

Frequency Gambling - if there are any recurring patterns detected, people will most likely respond in the way that has worked most in the past. Just because something worked in the past does NOT mean it will work in a current situation.

Satisficing - only doing the bare minimum or to meet the lower bound of expectations leaves much room for error.

Bounded Rationality - having a limited amount of information sets a boundary on our ability to make decisions based on that information.

Confirmation Bias - humans will tend to focus only on evidence which supports their views or claims (blindsiding to other perspectives).

Group-Think Syndrome - people will likely behave differently when they’re an individual as opposed to when they’re part of a group. One is less likely to speak against the majority in a group if they value their membership in it.

Systems

Often there can be many issues with an existing system we are not aware of. Most of these problems arise from the system’s design. There are some key things to keep in mind when designing a system:

Assume the system’s environment will be the worst case scenario, and whoever is using it will be trying their best to attack it.

Reduce complexity such that no one component is too complex or too empty.

Have a good level of cohesion such that components close to one another can make use of one another and those far apart do not.

Minimise coupling such that a change to one component doesn’t require changing other things - same goes for failures.

Note: Also don’t retain data which is no longer necessary - large data collections incentivise attackers!

The above all together create a system with defence in depth. Even good systems will fail at one point or another but so long as the one failure doesn’t bring down the entire system, the system itself is not broken (yet).

Privacy (seminar)

There are a variety of definitions for privacy but the presenting group chose to define it as ‘the right to be free from undue surveillance’. Since our privacy is often always under attack, some ways to try and maintain our privacy:

Incognito Browsing - doesn’t store browser history, forms or cookies, but doesn’t do anything effective in any other way.

When sending requests to websites, any data sent with the request is not private.

ISPs can still see data used on their networks and owners of shared networks have similar permissions.

Change Browser - Some such as DuckDuckGo don’t store IP addresses and other data.

More Cautious Behaviour - user behaviour is often one of the greatest risks to their own privacy.

Don’t stay logged in to accounts we don’t need to be.

Don’t link accounts to other accounts (such as Spotify to FB), as data aggregation is the main threat, not individual pieces of data.

Just Lie - there’s no harmful consequences and (theoretically) no one will know.

Set up a VPN - virtual private networks hide your IP so requests and connections are made from the VPN.

ISPs only see users request a connection to the VPN but not what the VPN is actually requesting.

Requires trust in the VPN - what makes one safer than another?

E.g. nordvpn, openvpn, expressvpn.

Onion Routing - redireting requests through a series of intermediate nodes with a layer of encryption at each node.

Only the client (you) know the symmetric key for every layer.

Client sends an n-layered encrypted request and one layer is decrypted at each node using their own key but it is still encrypted up until the exit node which receives the fully decrypted request. Vice versa when returning results.

Fails when doing something like logging into FB as FB still knows our email and password.

Digital Forensics (seminar)

This is the branch of forensics science involving the recovery or investigation of material found on digital devices. The main stages of recovering material are:

Imaging - capture an ‘image’ of the drive, chain of custody (protecting forensic evidence from being changed while it’s being transferred), hashing.

Analysis - keyword searches, recover deleted files, specialist tools used.

Reporting - evidence used to construct events/actions and report written.

Some tools frequently used in digital forensics include: Encase, Autopsy, FTK Imager, file, strings, xxd, Foremost, Binwalk, mmls.

Reflection

The rest of the second lecture after the seminars was filled with Prof. Buckland reading out an excerpt from a book about the Three Mile Island Accident, illustrating the recount with a diagram of the nuclear power plant on the screen. Having watched the HBO Chernobyl miniseries, I couldn’t help but notice some similarities in the incidents (although there was a difference in scale and impact), notably being the series of unfortunate events alternating between human error and misdirection by instruments. No matter what we are looking at, it tends to be that history will always repeat itself.

All the content this week (except for the Forensics seminar) felt quite applicable at a personal level. It is quite true that even in everyday activities when something goes wrong, we tend to blame others or just anything which isn’t ourselves. The list of human weaknesses was also frighteningly an accurate description of our behaviour under the described circumstances, and while we actually know these to be weaknesses, being able to change our habits and the way we think is an entirely different story.

The digital forensics similar went by quite quickly due to a time shortage but it is an in-demand skill set which is likely to grow in future. Privacy was likely the more useful seminar to the average person, providing us with many helpful tips on how to better protect our browsing from spying eyes. If the content presented were to be shared to a wider audience (for example through these blog posts) and garnered enough attention, it is almost certain we could better protect the privacy of the online community.

[xiumin-on-this-shit]

I Am An Alpha Ch 18: The Things We Can’t Avoid

“That was absolutely amazing!” I’m grinning ear to ear as Luhan helps me out of his car. I don’t even care about the massive building behind me at the moment, I just rush up to Kris who had driven in another car and basically beg, “Hyung can I ride with you next time?”

He chuckles, “Of course little wolf but you are offending Luhan hyung.”

I look over my shoulder at Luhan, who is not pouting as he holds the door open for Kyungsoo, Baekhyun and Jongdae to climb out of the back seat.

“Sorry Hyung but Kris hyung drives faster!”

Luhan scoffs, “I would have driven faster if I didn’t have Kyungsoo in the back growling in my ear anytime I went slightly above the speed limit. Kid is such a worry wart, he has her sitting in the front seat with his one arm resting on her shoulders and his other hand holding the door closed even though I already locked the doors.”

“You already poisoned her this morning, I wasn’t going to let her fall out of a moving car too,” Kyungsoo snaps.

“How was your first car ride?” Yixing asks me coming to stand by my side.

“It was so much fun, I can’t believe I’ve gone my whole like with out riding in one.”

“Enough car talk, lets get her inside the building, it’s freezing out here,” Suho decides, taking my hand and leading me past his brothers. I stare at our interlocked hands and realize this is the first time we’ve touched. Warm tingles spread from my fingertips to my toes, I find myself smiling at our connection, gripping his large hand tighter. I take a moment to do a mental checklist of who I’ve at least touched or  I’ve had some kind of moment with, Suho, Chanyeol, and Baekhyun are the only ones who don’t come to mind. With that in my head I pull Suho’s arm a bit so I can wrap our arms together, bringing our whole bodies closer together.

“Hyung.”

He raises his brows, “Yes?”

“We have never really talked,” I note.

He nods, “You haven’t been with us very long, I don’t want to overwhelm you and scare you away.”

“Don’t you want to be close to me though?” My hold on him loosens a bit, something he quickly notices and brings his free hand up to keep me from letting go completely.

“Of course I do! I just don’t want to be like Jongin and almost attack you.”

“You seem pretty in control of yourself,” I muse, “Maybe you’re just a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

That makes him laugh, a beautiful smile spreads across his face and I’m awe struck at such and amazing sight. My cheeks get a pink hue across them, my heart flutters. God they are beautiful.

“How do you feel about being out in public for the first time?” Suho asks, I blink a few times before glancing around. I basically jump into his arms, clinging to him for dear life, where the hell did all of these people come from? Lost in my own thought I didn’t even notice our change in back drop, from a parking garage, Luhan explained to me what they are, to a massive building filled with more people than I’ve ever seen in one place. “Are you okay?” He worries rubbing my back softly.

“So many people!” My eyes are as wide as can be as I try to take in as much a possible. There are so many different smells, human, wolf, something else, my mind is set into overdrive as I try to figure everything out. Someone bumps into us, out of habit I growl at the stranger, earning a confused look from the man.  My heart is beating quickly in my chest making it hard for me to breath. Suho’s hand runs up my neck and tangles in my hair, pushing me towards the crook of his neck. I hesitantly obey, afraid to take my eyes off of the on lookers who are slowly starting to stare.

“What’s wrong?” Kris is quickly standing over us.

“I think there might be too many things going on for her. We need to get her out of here before she lashes out or something.”

“The Executive lounge is on the top floor, should we take her there?” Jongdae suggests.

They must all agree because the next thing I know we are moving. I feel like we are blur, rushing through the corridors or halls or whatever they are called. I wait for more strange smells to find their way to me but all I can smell right now is Suho. It’s much different than from what I was expecting, something more like Minseok’s or Yixing’s, but he smells like a rainy day.

“Insoo,” Suho calls softly, running his fingers up and down my back. I hesitantly release him and realize that we are sitting down, my thighs straddling his hips. Concern is carved into his handsome face.

“I’m sorry Insoo I didn’t think this through,” Kris is kneeling next to us. “I should have known it would be too much, going from the woods to a shopping mall is a massive step. I’m an idiot.”

“Hyung it’s okay, I should have thought about it more. I haven’t been in public before, I should have told you that.”

“This wasn’t our greatest idea,” Luhan admits, “We should have definitely taken baby steps.”

“What should we do now though?” Tao questions.

Kris sighs, “You and Sehun go get her a few pairs of shoes to start out with. Kyungsoo and Jongin, you guys are on pajamas. Chan and Baek you guys are on actual clothes, jeans and shirts should be good to start. Jongdae and Yixing, other necessities like toothbrush, hair ties, and other things girls need. Luhan and Minseok hyung you guys are the most mature so you guys buy her underwear. I’m going to check in on a few things here in the offices, while Suho you stay here and watch over her, okay?”

“Yes Alpha,” Everyone responds together.

“Great, go.”

The ten men rush to the door dogs rushing for food, barely able to squeeze through the doorway. I finally look around our new setting, it’s a decent sized room with two couches and a TV. One wall I realize is completely made of glass looking over the very busy area I’m assuming we were moments ago, how in the world did they get up here so fast.

“Little wolf,” Kris is standing next to me, stroking my head.

I look back at him, “Hm?”

“I’m going to do some work, you will be fine here with Suho right? Cause if not I can stay and let him go.”

Suho nods, though I can tell he doesn’t want to, “I won’t take offense, you are much more comfortable with Kris and this is a very stressful situation for you, I’ll understand.”

Without hesitation I say, “I want Suho to stay, you can do your work.”

“Are you sure?” Kris asks once more.

Suho glares at him, “She said it’s fine, now go.”

I can see how hesitant the older is to just leave but I give him one last smile and wave as he closes the door. A chuckle escapes my lips at his sad child like face.

“You two are so close already,” Suho notes as he places his hands on my hips. “I’m so jealous.”

“Well Hyung what could I do to make you feel closer to me?”

He hums for a minute, “Well there is one thing.”

I cock my head.

“Call me Oppa,” He requests quietly.

“Oppa?” The word sounds foreign on my lips but I notice Suho perking up.

“I just want you to call me it once, please?”

“Suho oppa!” I smile at him, enjoying the way his eyes light up.

“It’s just so cute when you do it,” He is grinning ear to ear.

“Do you not like that I call you hyung?”

He shakes his head quickly, “I’m happy with whatever you call me as long as I can hear your voice. But it was nice to hear at least once from you…”

“I’m sorry, I would do it but in all honesty I never consider it because the only people I’ve ever called oppa are my brothers. They were murdered the night of the raid and ever sense it just doesn’t sound right,” I admit quietly.

Any kind of happy emotion falls from his face, “I am so sorry! If I had known I would have never asked for such a thing, I’m such an idiot! I’m so sorry.”

I wrap my arms around him and pull him into a tight hug, “How could you have known? It’s okay, it’s okay.”

“There is so much about you that we don’t know, so many painful stories.”

“Lots of them aren’t painful anymore, because I wouldn’t be where I am now with the family I have.”

He nods.

Our nice moment is ruined by my stomach gurgling and a sudden pain spreading through my midsection. I clutch my stomach for a minute, waiting for the pain to pass but it only dulls slightly.

“Are you okay?” Suho worries.

I shake my head, “It must be Luhan’s breakfast settling in.”

“Ah fuck, they told me about that, here you sit here,” He scoots me off his lap and on to the couch as he rushes to the door. “I’ll be back with something to calm your stomach, don’t move!” Just like that he is gone. I try to sit there patiently but the groaning in my stomach is telling me to find someplace to empty the contents of my stomach. It slowly makes its way up my throat and suddenly I’m on my feet rushing out of the room for a way outside or to anywhere that they can’t see me. I rush out of nice area they had taken me into, ending up in a pretty empty hall. I see a sign for restrooms cross some kind of bridge or arch or something and run to it. A bad vibe hangs over my shoulder for a moment  as I run down the hall but stops when I reach the restroom door that I bust into. Inside I find the first toilet and throw up everything I’ve eaten the last three days. It only takes a few heaves to actually empty my stomach, I just dry heave for a few more minutes because my body gives me no other option.

“Are you okay?” A soft voice wonders from behind me.

I spit one last time before wiping my mouth off with a piece of toilet paper, “Do I sound like I’m okay?” It comes out more aggressive than I meant to but I’m upset by my now empty stomach.

“I guess not, sorry,” The small voice apologizes.

I close my eyes for a minute with a sigh, “No, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. I’m okay, thank you for asking.” Namjoon’s manners lesson finally becomes useful.

“I think you ran into the wrong bathroom,” Another voice pipes in. I turn around confused, two little omega girls are staring at me with wide eyes. We are about the same height but that is the only thing we have in common. They have long flowing hair that is blonde and some kind of red. Both are wearing pastel colored dresses and cute little heeled shoes, cute outfits that match their baby faces. Their hands are intertwined, a little fear in their eyes, like I would attack them but looking down I understand why. Under Minseok’s clothes my small figure is covered, my hood is up and I’m wearing shoes much to big for me, I do look a bit boyish.

I’m about to correct them when the taller of the two takes a step closer to me, “Oppa, can you help us?” I blink at her for a moment, me, Oppa?

The other nods, “There is this scary alpha creeping in the hall and we can’t leave.”

“I know you are an omega too but maybe you can scare him off since you are a boy. Oppa please!”

“That must have been the bad vibe I got when I rushed in,” I realize.

“He hasn’t come in because he likes toying with us,” The shorter sniffles.

“It’s okay don’t cry, I’ll see what I can do and pray that my mates don’t see me,” I cringe at the thought of what they would do if they saw me fighting again. “Speaking of which,” I pause, “You both smell of other alphas, where are your mates?”

“We told them we could at least go to the bathroom on our own but of course we can’t even do that,” The taller looks down at her shoes ashamed.

“Don’t worry,” I pat her head, “I’ll protect you from the big bag alpha.” Even though I’m smiling at these sweet little omega my heart pings as I think of my past. “You guys wait here, I’ll see if I can get rid of him, okay?”

They nod before giving a quiet fighting.

With a sigh I walk to the exit and down the hall from where I came I see the alpha that they were talking about. The hallway reeks of his pheromones, letting those girls inside know that he’s out here and he’s waiting for them. A snarl rumbles in my chest at the old tricks he’s playing. Soldiers used to do this to omegas that were trying to hide in the villages we were raiding. The alpha pushes away from the wall he was leaning on and swaggers my way, his head cocked to the side in amusement.

“Was that a growl I heard from you, Omega?” He muses.

“It was,” I snap, “What the hell are you doing slinking around mated omegas?”

“I don’t think that is any of your business. I’m not looking for any little boys to fuck so scram,” He gestures for me to pass.

“I’m not going anywhere without those little omegas so fuck off.”

He laughs, “I’d watch that mouth of yours, unless you want me to find it something else to do.”

“Don’t you have something better you could be doing?”

“Not anymore,” He wraps his arm around my shoulders, “I found exactly what I want to be doing. I’ve never knotted a male omega, I guess there is a first time for everything.” I cringe at his words, placing my hand over his, I lift it over my head and twist it behind his back, sending him to his knees. He cries out as the bones in his arms crack, “You are breaking my arm!”

“I am.”

“Stop! Stop! Please!”

I sigh, “You act so tough but can’t even handle some broken bones. If you going to pretend to be the big bad wolf at least know how to act like one, you whiny bitch. Are you done harassing girls?”

“Yes!” He seethes as he tries to pull away form me with no luck.

“I swear to go if I see you doing this again I’ll rip your knot right off, got it?”

He nods frantically.

“Good,” I push him to the ground, expecting him to run away but flips on to his feet and crouches down ready to attack.

I sigh, ready for him to jump at me but when two more alphas join us in the hall the man freezes. It’s two alphas I don’t know but their scents are familiar enough for me to assume that they are the two omegas mates.

“Shit,” The alpha snarls as he pushes past the other two and escapes down the hall. I look to the new comers with an awkward smile, not really sure how to interact with people. They just look confused about whatever could have happened in front of them.

“Oppa!” The two girls rush out of the restroom and I assume they are running to their mates but they basically tackle me to the ground. “Thank you!”

“Rose, Lisa, what the hell is going on?” One of the alphas asks.

“Mino oppa!” The blonde pops up and beams at her mate.

“Who is this? Get off of him, you shouldn’t jump on strange wolves,” The other scolds, pulling the red head off me. Blondie is pulled up next, I sit up leaning back on my hands, not really expecting the jealous looking alphas to let their mates touch me again.

“This is the Oppa that saved us from the scary alpha,” Red responds, pouting at her mate.

“We are the ones that scared him away,” Mino clarifies.

I roll my eyes but Blondie defends me, “He had him screaming before you showed up.”

Mino is going to snap back before a horrifying growl echoes through the hall. We all sink down as the pheromones of twelve pissed alphas surrounds us. The four wolves near me are on their knees with their heads down. I scan the four before looking to my mates, trying to figure out who they are mad at.

Kris is in the front, looking like he is about ready to murder someone. I smile at him awkwardly, “Hey Kris hyung.”

[ecotone99]

[MF] Kuyo Kuyo

Listening to classical music, especially Mozart’s Turkish March, was the best way to focus. The playful drills transitioning to festive chords always filled me with energy and cheered me up during stressful days. But my energizer had begun to wane as I reached the tenth day of exam prep. The drills now seemed to mock me and the chords beat in synch with my headache.

No worries, I had prepared a backup to wash away my fatigue. Just picturing the sweet milk tea and the chewy tapioca pearls eased a bit of the pounding in my head. I didn’t even feel annoyed when my roommate Mark ignored my greeting as I passed the shared living room, heading towards the kitchen.

There were three of us sharing the big apartment. Gideon, our third roommate wasn’t that bad. A bit oblivious and invading one's private space but with good intentions most of the time. We had our oddities and quirks but Mark leaned more on the extreme side of the scale.

People often indulge in their hobbies after finishing their main priorities, like studying or working. But for Mark, gaming was his main priority. He could throw himself into his games and ignore everything else.

The cans of energy drinks surrounding him and his bloodshot eyes meant that he probably pushed his limit for something ridiculous again.

If only he’d given the same passion to the more important things in life.

Each person handled stress in their own way, I guess. Some simply gave up and played games. Others, like me, prepared beforehand and had a pick-me-up in the refri—

I blinked and shook my head, trying to clear the imaginary numbers and formulas crammed inside my mind, and looked closer inside the refrigerator. My boba drink was nowhere to be found.

A fizz seeped into the kitchen as Mark cracked open another can, followed by audible gulps and lip-smacking.

Would Mark drink someone else’s stuff without permission? Of course, he would. He still hasn’t apologized to Gideon for that bottle of Jager.

I slammed the refrigerator door and stormed off to the living room. Mark didn’t even rise from his seat from all my stomping and huffing, merely pausing the game and connecting with my eyes.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” I asked, seething.

“No,” Mark blurted out. His brows then furrowed as he processed what I said. “What is it this time?”

He scanned me, before putting down the controller and edging away from the TV and Playstation.

“My boba drink in the refrigerator. You took it, didn’t you?”

“Whaaat?” Mark’s voice turned high and squeaky, he sounded offended by my accusation. “Why would I do that? I don’t even like boba.”

“You said the same thing with the salt and vinegar chips, but I saw a half-eaten bag of it in your room last week.”

“That’s different. I prefer other chips, and I would choose other options before salty-vin. But I won’t say no to eating a bag or two.”

“That’s not the words you used when you tried them, you said — “ I stopped myself, realizing Mark had switched topic.

My headache flared up. I just wanted something to be right. That a plan I made would work out. But reality wasn’t so kind.

Now Mark began to spin a theory how it was more probable that our third roommate Gideon had taken it on the way to the library this morning. He was trying to blame on someone else.

I went behind the TV and grabbed hold of the main cable, staring Mark in the eyes.

“Don’t you dare,” he whispered with a threatening tone, but his body was frozen in place.

It felt great pulling the plug on the Playstation.

​

*****

​

Why was Will grinning like that, as if he’d just defeated a big bad? If anything, he was Sephirot and my poor PS4 was Aerith.

Thirty hours. I had invested over thirty hours for my next achievement: To clear Arcade Mode without losing a single hit point. And he pulls the plug when I’m on the last boss battle?

Some might say that my goal was impossible. Others had firmly expressed how it was a waste of time. But they wouldn’t know glory even if it flashed itself in front of them. The satisfaction behind completing such a grand achievement wasn’t just about defeating the machine. It was defeating it perfectly, thrashing it, showing who’s the boss. That it lacks the power of the human spirit.

Yes, it was humanity challenging the machines.

Of course I was mad when all my efforts got thrown out the window. Everyone knows that you can’t save in Arcade Mode, you must do it in one take. Of course I threw stuff at Will. It was expected. And what the hell was that about a boba-drink? I had already said that I didn’t like it. Why would I drink something I didn’t like?

“Check through my empty cans, your stupid boba isn’t here!”

Oh boy, Will was turning into a baby, screaming and shouting about boba this and boba that.

“It wasn’t me you, iron-ranker! It’s because you don’t listen to people that you can’t climb in League! Do you even know that only a small percentile who plays the game even manages to get that low of a rank? Reflect on your actions for heaven’s sake. Meditate on some Dark Soul and learn some patience!”

Great, he’s gone silent now, biting his lower lip. I was the victim here, damnit. And now he ran back to his room.

What the hell. I can’t handle this. Gideon can clean up this mess.

​

*****

​

The library was particularly wonderful this afternoon as the sound of paper turned and hushed whispers filled my ears. Goal-oriented students occupied the tables, everyone with a clear vision in mind of what they had to do. I knew that I just had to sit amongst them for an hour or so and I too would get a visit by Athena, Saraswati or maybe Tir. They were knocking on my mind’s door, ready to bless me with knowledge to—

The phone in my pocket vibrated.

Not today. Today was study day, my last chance to cram before the test.

But I’ll just check who’s calling. It won’t take a second.

Mark. How interesting. He doesn’t often initiate conversations with me.

The vibrations from the phone grabbed the attention of nearby students, who sent me angry glares. I rose from my seat and answered the call as I headed outside, curious to hear what Mark wanted. It won’t take a minute. It might be something important.

“Hey man, I need help.” Mark’s voice sounded frustrated. “Will’s having a fit again.”

“Oh no, what happened?”

“Someone drank his boba and blamed me. Went all crazy.”

“The one with those chewy things? How strange that he thought you would take it. Didn’t you say you hated it?”

“That’s what I said! And you know what he did after? He pulled the plug on my Playstation!”

“No, he did not!”

“While I was playing!”

“I’m sorry to hear that. How many hours?”

“Thirty plus. He’s shut himself in his room now and I don’t know how to handle this. Could you talk to him? Check what’s wrong? Because something isn’t right. He’s been stomping around in his room and blasting that irritating piano music for a while now. I don’t think he’s really mad about the drink. Well, maybe a bit, but it’s never just because of a drink or a snack when it comes to Will.”

“Why don’t you talk to him?” I asked. “Some bonding between you two would be great.”

“Right, like when I apologized for spilling a few drops on his book?”

“The book was soaked, and ‘Here you go’ isn’t really an apology. I must give you credit for the towel and the napkins though.”

“I ain’t touching that ticking time-bomb. It’s best to let a specialist handle it.”

“Why that’s sweet of you to say. See, give Will some compliments like this now and then. I think he’ll appreciate it.”

“He’ll just think I insulted him again. Look, can you defuse the bomb?”

“I’ll do that when I get back home. I’m studying right now.”

A chuckle leaked out from the other side. “Yeah right, have you even opened a book yet?”

“No, but I’m feeling focused and energized.”

“Glad to hear that. I’ll hang at my girlfriend’s tonight.”

“Alright, hope you have fun there.”

“Oh, you know I will,” Mark said and hung up.

A bit crude in character, but Mark means well, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. I headed back to my seat and flipped open my book in linguistics, but the deities weren’t knocking on my door anymore. A new seed had grown inside my mind, distracting me from my studies.

Ah well, let’s go and check on Will. It won’t take an hour. I can study after.

​

*****

​

Rachmaninoff always had a flair for drama. His Opus 3 in C-sharp drenched my room with heavy bass tones and feelings of dread. It made me think of a monster swimming at the bottom of the ocean, biding its time to strike.

The music was supposed to warn other residents that I was in a bad mood and not to disturb me. But oblivious Gideon had ignored it and knocked anyway. Since my lock was broken there was only one thing to do. I cranked up the volume on my stereo even further.

Gideon entered. His expression mixed concern with curiosity. That man had no fear. He would start chatting with a group of hostile strangers without hesitation if he found them interesting. Glares and snide remarks bounced off his thick skin. Sometimes I wished my skin was the same.

“Will, how are you?” he shouted over the music. “I heard that you had a fight with Mark.”

“It’s nothing,” I said, not making eye contact and staring at my book.

“I’m sorry, but can you speak louder? I can’t hear you over the music.”

I sighed and turned off my stereo.

“It’s nothing,” I repeated, and returned to my desk again, swiveling my chair and showing my back to Gideon.

“Oh, alright then,” he said, and sat down on my bed without asking for permission.

He stayed silent for a full minute while I tried to read my book. Through my peripherals, I saw him lean closer to the stereo.

“Was that Rachmaninoff?” Gideon asked, breaking the silence.

I nodded as I flipped a page.

“What happened to Mozart and Handel?” he continued.

“I was in the mood for Rachmaninoff,” I said. “Do you mind? I’m trying to read here.”

“Oh, I don’t mind at all,” Gideon said. “Are you perhaps reading something dramatic or tragic?”

I finally looked at him with an eyebrow raised in confusion.

“It sounded very dramatic,” he said and shrugged, “so I was wondering if you played the music to enhance your readings.”

He leaned closer towards me, his eyes squinting to read the words in my book. “What are you reading?”

“Multivariable calculus.”

“Ah, a tragedy then.”

“What do you want, Gideon?”

“Oh, I’m just checking on you. Since you had a fight with Mark.”

“And I said it’s nothing.”

“That’s not a proper answer to my question. You don’t respond with ‘It’s nothing’ to ‘How are you’. That’s just wrong in both syntax and context.”

“No it’s not. I’m referring to the fight. It’s correct.”

“But I’m referring to you. That should’ve been obvious.”

The numbers in the book couldn’t stave off Gideon’s relentless attacks. I turned around, staring him down.

“I am fine. Thank you,” I said, enunciating each word.

“It’s not proper to lie either,” Gideon said. “What’s wrong?”

He then patted on my bed, like he was playing bongo drums, urging me to sit next to him.

There was no way to get him out of the room. Trying to shove him out would only result in him locking my arms in some MMA-crap while he continued with the conversation like it was all normal. I could only oblige.

“It’s more than the boba-drink, isn’t it?” Gideon asked, as I sat down.

“I’m just worried,” I said.

“About what?”

“About...everything?” There, I said it. Now I wouldn’t be able to stop. “About life, about choice, about… everything. Will I graduate? Will I get a job? Will I even be happy with what I work with? I don’t hate math, but I don’t really like it either. Can I really live like that? I’m just worried that it won’t work out. My parents wants me to move to Shanghai with them after I graduate, but I’m not sure if I want to. On one hand, it’s a great career opportunity, but on the other hand I’ve had my whole life here in this town, I don’t want to up and leave everything. Will it even work out there? And if it doesn’t, can I even return back to this town after wasting my time there?”

The words vomited out of my mouth. Each worry I expressed felt like an acid reflux.

Gideon listened as I prattled on. He nodded and tilted his head every now and then, maybe to respond but stopped himself. Whenever I choked on my worries, he would rub my back with upward strokes as if gently guiding the words out of my mouth.

“You’re taking things too seriously,” he concluded when I was done.

“Of course,” I said. “It’s my life. Why shouldn’t I take it seriously?”

But he wagged his finger in response. “Sometimes it’s easier to let things happen without worrying about the consequences,”

“Besides,” Gideon continued, drumming his fingers on his knees and gazing at the ceiling, “I’ve always hated the word ‘worry’ in the English language. It sounds too close to ‘world’, and ‘weary’, and those are too big and serious sometimes.”

He muttered ‘worry’ to himself a few times, grimacing as he tasted the word. “It reminds me of ‘warrior’ too, and they also take themselves too seriously. I wish we had borrowed more words from other languages.”

“And throw English into more chaos?” I said and shook my head.

“Do you know how they say ‘worry’ in Japanese?” Gideon asked.

I didn’t.

“It’s kuyo kuyo.”

I could only chuckle. “It sounds like baby-talk.”

“Yes, that’s exactly it,” Gideon said and snapped his fingers. “Baby-talk. You can’t take it seriously if it’s baby-talk. When you think about ‘worry’ in English, it becomes all serious and overwhelming. But start exchanging ‘worry’ with kuyo kuyo and suddenly it becomes much easier to handle.”

He put a hand on my shoulder. “Do that.”

“Do what?”

“Those things you said just now. I worry about this. I worry about that, but instead of saying worry, say kuyo kuyo.”

“That’s just silly.” Besides, I didn’t want to experience that vomiting sensation again.

“Give it a try. I can start,” Gideon said and cleared his throat. “I kuyo kuyo that I’ll wake up late for tomorrow’s lecture.”

He looked at me with eagerness in his eyes.

Still feeling the nausea from my word vomit, I closed my eyes and whispered. “I kuyo kuyo that I’ll choose poorly.”

“There you go,” Gideon said and patted my back. “I kuyo kuyo that my date with Angie won’t go well.”

“I kuyo kuyo that Mark won’t forgive me.”

“He’ll be fine,” Gideon said. “He’ll just think of it as another challenge. Besides his girlfriend will probably cheer him up. My turn.”

And we continued on for a while. Replacing each worry with a kuyo kuyo. It sounded silly. It sounded childish. But most importantly, it sounded less daunting. As if I spoke about someone else’s problem.

“Getting late now,” Gideon said as he checked his phone for the time. “Let’s order some pizza for dinner.”

“Thanks, Gideon,” I said. “I feel much better now.”

He flashed a satisfied grin. “Any more worries you want to transform into kuyo kuyo’s?”

“I think I’m out of worries,” I responded and felt it to be true. Exhaustion clinged to me and my mind wobbled around in a groggy blankness, but the splitting headache had gone.

Gideon patted me on the shoulder.

“I have one left,” he said. “You want to hear it?”

“Sure.”

“I kuyo kuyo that you’ll throw something at me because I drank your boba-drink. Sorry.”

A chuckle rolled out from my throat as I reached for a pillow.

​

​

Thank you for reading. Thoughts and feedback are always welcome!

submitted by /u/Errorwrites [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/2MRmO4V

[mamasquirrelwithacup]

Mamasquirrel’s Simetics Simedy Short Stories Simlit: Chapter 7 of Series 1 “Luminous” Finale part 4

“I’ve been expecting your call. Good! What? Where? Get out of there now! I’ll be in touch soon!”

“Reaper, I just heard from our agent. They are still in place, but there’s a big problem.” Says Caleb. 

“What might that be?” Asks Reaper. 

“They would only tell me that you’re needed on location ASAP.” Replies Caleb. 

“If they need me on location, that can’t be good. You know what to do here. I’ll be in touch.” Says Reaper. 

The group of friends open the door and head down the stairs connecting to other rooms. 

“Lets take a look around to see if we can find anything.” Says Fornax. 

The group of friends check out each room one by one. 

“This room is a kitchen.” Says Vastra. She looks around in every cabinet and finds nothing out of the ordinary. 

“Nothing here but just everyday kitchen stuff. So, this room is clear.”

Fornax takes the next room. 

“This is a dinning area. Nothing here either. This room is clear.”

Carafe enters the next room.

“This is just a bathroom. I don’t see anything in here. This room is clear.”

Phoenix checks the foyer area. He spots something. 

“Hmm...I don’t see anything around this area either. It’s all clear here too.” Says Phoenix.

“Everyone lets go back to the door. From this point on, we need to stick together.” Says Fornax. 

Fornax opens the door. They go inside. 

“Wow! Look at all of this stuff.” Says Vastra.

“Let’s look around.” Says Carafe. 

“Look at all of this high tech equipment. I wonder what it’s for?” Asks Fornax.

“What is this place?” Asks Carafe.

They move to another area of the large room. 

“What is all of this” Asks Fornax.

“It looks like equipment used in hospitals” Replies Vastra.

“Why would this place need hospital equipment?” Asks Carafe.

“I don’t know, it doesn’t make sense unless...” Says Vastra.

“Unless what?” Asks Fornax. 

“Unless this is a hospital. This place has to be a hospital. It has the proper equipment for treating life forms, it has beds over here.” Replies Vastra.

“A hospital? Are you sure? Why would they need a hospital here? Are there anyone in the beds?” Asks Carafe.

“The beds are clear. This is a military base. I don’t know much about the military, but maybe this is where they bring their soldiers if they are wounded.” Says Vastra.

“I don’t know anything about the military, but maybe that’s possible. Let’s keep looking around.” Replies Fornax.

“Yes, this is definitely a hospital. They even have beds for babies here.” Says Vastra.

“Are there any babies in them?” Asks Carafe.

“No, they’re clear.” Replies Vastra. 

They see another door. Not knowing what is on the other side of the door, they carefully open it. 

Behind the door is a long dark hallway. They stay close together and walk to the end of it. 

They come to another door that requires the key card. They know that with each door they are taking a chance of getting caught. They need to be ready if they do. 

‘I tried. I really did. I guess, It’s hopeless now.’

They open the door and are shocked in what they find. 

“These are human life forms right?” Asks Carafe.

“Appears that they are.” Replies Vastra.

“What kind of beds are these? I have never seen anything like it before?” Asks Fornax. 

“I don’t know, I haven’t seen them before either.” Replies Vastra. 

“Are these viable human forms?” Asks Carafe.

“No, they appear to be expired life forms.” Replies Vastra.

“We need to continue to look around for anything that can tell us what is going on here.” Says Fornax.

“Look around with the expired humans in here? It just makes me really sad.” Says Carafe.

“I know it’s not easy. It’s not easy on any of us, but we really need to try and find more answers and our parents. They may not be here, but they are somewhere in one of these worlds. We can’t give up hope.” Replies Fornax. 

“You’re right, we need to keep looking.” Says Carafe, smiling at her brother. 

“Okay, lets look around and check everywhere for anything.” Says Fornax.

“This is empty. There is no life form in it.” Says Fornax. 

“Wait, I think I found something! These beds connect through the wall to something. The top part when I touch it, has energy coming from it. The middle part connected through the wall, I’m not sure what it does.” Says Vastra. 

“Connected through the wall...we are under the strange flower right? Where it’s connected to all of those machines?” Asks Carafe. 

“Right, we are! If these beds are connected to those machines and those machines are connected to the strange flower, then these beds are being used to give that strange flower something.” Replies Fornax.  

“But what?” Asks Carafe.

“That is what we need to find out.” Replies Fornax. 

The group of friends approach another door. 

“Do you hear that?” Asks Carafe.

“Yes, I hear something.” Replies Vastra. 

“Do you know where the sound is coming from?” Asks Fornax. 

“I believe it’s coming from behind the door.” Replies Vastra. 

“It sounds so familiar?” Says Fornax. 

Fornax tries to use the key card, but it doesn’t work. He tries again, but it still doesn’t work. 

“Does this card have a limit on it?” Asks Fornax. 

“No, these cards don’t have limits on them. That’s credit cards that have that.” Replies Vastra, giving out a snicker. 

Fornax tries one more time and like magic it opens. They look inside and are astounded by what they see. They can’t believe their eyes. Are they dreaming? Is the strange smokey substance from earlier messing with their minds again? 

In front of them is a room filled with various life forms all contained in a watery substance in special chambers. 

“Please tell me you are seeing them too! I just can’t believe my eyes right now!” Says Carafe. 

“Yes, I’m seeing the life forms too.” Replies Fornax. 

“I hope these are viable life forms.” Says Carafe.

“These appear to be viable life forms that are just in a deep sleep.” Says Vastra. 

“What are they doing here? We need to split up and check them. See if we recognize any of them. Look around too and see if you can find anything.” Says Fornax. 

The group of friends check each life form. 

“I don’t recognize any of these.” Says Carafe.

“Okay, keep checking them.” Says Vastra.

They move around the room to each life form. Hoping to find at least one they might know. To no prevail, they can’t find anyone they recognize. 

“Fornax come quick! It’s....It’s our father!” Yells Carafe. 

“What? Are you serious? He’s here?” Asks Fornax, barely able to keep his composure. 

Carafe catches something out of the corner of her eye.

“Fornax, it’s our mother too!” Exclaimed Carafe. 

“I can’t believe we found them! They are both here! We need to try and find a way of getting them out.” Says Fornax. 

“I don’t know why they are in these chambers, but what if something goes wrong?” Asks Carafe.

“It’s a chance we’ll have to take. I’m going to look for something that can help us get them out. You stay here and I will be back in a couple of minutes.” Replies Fornax.  

Fornax heads for the door and is taken by surprise. 

“Not so fast! You aren’t going anywhere!” Exclaims Phoenix. 

“What are you doing, Phoenix? Why won’t you let me leave? We have to get help or find something to get them out! Please, Phoenix!” Begs Fornax. 

“You can’t, I won’t let you. I can’t take that risk of something happening!” Replies Phoenix. 

“What risk would you be taking?” Asks Fornax. 

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to use this on you, but if I need to I will. I want the three of you to line up and walk out of this door. I will follow behind you. You keep walking until I tell you to stop.” Demands Phoenix. 

‘I hope you can forgive me someday. I have to do it.’

“Okay, no need for that anymore. We will comply.” Replies Fornax. 

“Don’t you dare try anything or I will use it next time. I don’t think you would want something to happen to your precious little sister would you?” Asks Phoenix. 

“No, no need for that! I understand.” Replies Fornax. 

“Good, I’m glad we have that understanding. Now, I’m going to open the door and you move out.” Says Phoenix. 

When Phoenix turns away, Fornax tries to take a run for the door. 

“I thought we had an agreement Fornax? Now, you have gone and done a naughty thing. I guess you need a lesson in listening? Maybe your sweet sister should take the lesson for you! Hmm....who to pick?” Says Phoenix.  

“You will pick no one Phoenix! It’s over! Put that down!” Demands a deep dark voice from behind him. 

Phoenix knows exactly who that voice belongs to. He could never forget that voice. Not even after all these years. 

“Reaper!” Says Phoenix. 

“Phoenix, you have to let them go and you have to get out of here now!” Says Reaper. 

“Why should I listen to you?” Asks Phoenix.

“If you don’t, you will all die! Even your sister, Phoenix. Do you want her to die too? This place is going to explode at any moment.” Explains Reaper. 

“Explode? This place isn’t going to explode. You’re lying!” Says Phoenix. 

“If I were lying, do you think I would be here? Remember what I do for a living, or do you need a reminder?” Asks Reaper. 

“You have a point, but how do I really know you are telling me the truth?” Asks Phoenix. 

“Phoenix, this is not the time to play “truth or dare” with me. If you don’t trust me, everyone will die. Is that what you want? Can you really afford not to trust me? Remember, I was the one who helped save you 7 years ago when your family crashed in one of my worlds. Have you forgotten about that?” Asks Reaper.

“No, I remember very well. You took my parents from me and you are behind all of this. You took my sister from me too. This is why I don’t trust you. This is why I hate you. You took everything I had from me. Left me alone with nothing and no one.” Replies Phoenix. 

“There was nothing I could do for your parents Phoenix. It’s my job to reap the souls of the departed. They were gone and there was nothing I could do to bring them back. You had only minor injuries, but you needed medical attention. I contacted the hospital myself and my dear friend Vastra to help you. Like I explained before, your sister wasn’t there. It was just you and your parents when I arrived. I had nothing to do with the disappearance of her.” Explains Reaper. 

“Now that I have found her again after all these years, no one is going to stand in my way of getting her back.” Says Phoenix. 

“I don’t want to stand in your way of getting your sister back, but if we don’t hurry you won’t have that chance. Think about Vastra too, Phoenix. She has been really good to you these past 7 years. She has taken care of you and provided for you. She has been a good friend. She has helped you in every way she can to find your sister.” Says Reaper. 

All of a sudden they hear a loud explosion and then another one. They can feel the building start to shake. 

“We don’t have much time left! I promise that I will help protect all of you for as long as I can if you hurry and get everyone out now.” Says Reaper.   

With that, Phoenix agrees.

Carafe and Fornax carry out their parents first. They will get them to a safe place and come back for the others. Phoenix takes his sister out. He can’t believe how much she has changed and grown. She was just 8 years old then. He can’t believe that he finally has his sister back. 

They hear another loud explosion and this time it’s even closer. The building shakes and pieces of the ceiling start to fall.

“Hurry, this way. I know a shortcut and a much safer location to take them. Follow me! Once you have them to safety, I will come back and open the rest of the chambers for you. It will be faster that way.” Says Reaper. 

The building begins to crumble and fill up with smoke around them. 

“It’s too dangerous to go back in there. We have our families and almost everyone out. I don’t think we should risk going back in.” Says Phoenix. 

“I agree, it very dangerous, but they deserve a chance to be back with their families too. I’m going back in to at least try.” Replies Fornax.

“Let’s go, Fornax!” Says Carafe.

Fornax, Carafe, and Vastra head back down to try and rescue the remaining life forms. 

“I can’t see in here. It’s so hard to breathe, too.” Says Carafe.

“I don’t know where to go. I can’t see anything either.” Says Fornax.

They hear a familiar voice speak out to them. 

“Get down on your hands and knees and stay as low as you can. It will help with your breathing. Don’t try and talk, just follow the sound of my voice. I will guide you back to the others.” Says Reaper. 

They get back to the room and grab the remaining life forms. 

“I want you to run as fast as you can. I know it won’t be easy with carrying someone, but you must try. I will help guide you back though.” Says Reaper. 

They all run as fast as they can back towards safety. They hear another explosion and part of the building starts to cave in around them. Carafe falls to her knees to try and protect the life form she has. She is getting hit by debris. 

“Carafe!” Yells out Fornax. “Reaper, It’s Carafe! She’s down!” 

 “I will go back in to get her, but I need to get all of you out first.” Replies Reaper.

Once Fornax and Vastra make it out, he rushes back in after her. He grabs her by the hand.

“Are you okay? Do you think you can walk?” Asks Reaper. 

“My arm is hurt, but I’m okay. I can walk, I think.” Replies Carafe.

“You lean on me, and I will carry out the life form.” Says Reaper. 

Reaper lifts the other life form over his shoulder. He takes Carafe by the hand and leads them to safety. 

“I have to go back in one more time. I have to finish my job. There are three souls still trapped in there.” Says Reaper.

“Trapped?” Asks Fornax.

“Yes, the three expired souls.” Says Reaper.

He heads back in and releases their souls from the bondage they’re in. Then he reaps and sets them free to the Netherworld.

He then uses his own disappearing act to leave the building. With a quick spin of his scythe, he finds himself back outside with everyone.

“Now, let’s get everyone taken care of.” Says Reaper.  

The siblings check on their parents.

“I wish they would wake up! They’ve been asleep for days.” Says Carafe.

“I know, but the doctor said it could be awhile before they do. I’m just glad they are okay.” Replies Fornax.

“Me too!” Says Carafe.

‘I’m so glad that you are back home. I know you will have a long road ahead for recovery, but I will be with you all the way.”

Several more days go by and yet they still sleep. 

“Ursa! You’re awake!” Exclaims Fornax.

She holds out her hand for him to take. She yet can’t talk. Her voice has been silent far too long.The hospital has been sending doctors and nurses to care for them everyday here. The doctors told Phoenix that she will have to learn how to do things like walk and talk again with therapy. He doesn’t care how long it takes or if she ever does. He is just happy to have his little sister back and he will take care of her either way. 

“You’re awake!” Exclaims Fornax.

“Mom! Dad! So happy to see that you’re okay. We have missed you both so much.” Says Carafe. 

The family have a sweet reunion and are so happy to finally be back together. 

Their parents will need more time to heal before heading back home. Ursa will need months of therapy before she can go back home too. Nigel offers for them to stay there as long as they need until everyone is better. 

Over the next few months, everything comes to light. Phoenix goes to Fornax and Carafe and finally tells them the truth. He tells them that one night his family had went out driving around on the spaceship. His father was trying to teach him how to drive it. Something went wrong and they crashed. When he opened his eyes, there was this dark figure with a deep dark voice standing near by. 

“I watched this dark figure take my parents’ souls. I knew that they were gone. I looked around for my sister. She was no where to be found. The next thing I remember, is being in the hospital. Vastra was the first person I saw after I woke up. She took me in and has been there for me. She told me that if my sister’s soul had been reaped, there would have been a urn left. There wasn’t one there. It was just my parents’ urns. I was determined to find my sister and this dark form. I just knew he had been the one that caused all of this. I guess, I was wrong. He had been the one to help me. I thought for sure he was the one that had taken my sister. I now know I was wrong about that too. I’m so sorry for not being truthful and for my behavior. That person that was blackmailing me as Nigel calls it, was threatening to kill my sister and the others if I didn’t try and stop you. I did what I did because I was trying to protect them. Again, I’m very sorry. She’s all I have left. I couldn’t risk her life. I was trying everything I could to keep you from getting any information. Even all of that flirting was part of it.” Explains Phoenix. 

“You’re wrong about that, Phoenix! You have all of us, too! Of course we accept your apology. We understand why you did what you did. If we had been in your situation, we may have done the same thing. So, you only flirted with all of those men just to keep us from talking to them? You weren’t interested?” Asks Carafe. 

“No, I was interested in a couple. Okay, several.” Replied Phoenix, laughing. 

“Let’s just make a promise between friends, that we will always be honest with each other from here on out, okay?” Says Carafe, laughing too. 

  “Okay!” Says Phoenix, smiling and happy that they forgave him. 

Fornax uses this time to lean what he can about the hospital that they found their families in, and what exactly happened to his parents that night. 

He learns that his parents had traveled into the other worlds just to stargaze for part of their date, when a really bad storm came up. Lighting hit their spaceship and they crashed. The next thing his parents knew they were surround by different life forms trying to help them. They had gotten some pretty bad injuries and some that needed surgery. His father had taken a turn for the worse and his mother was not doing well either. The doctors told his parent’s they were going to put them in a deep sleep. Then they were going to put them in a special therapeutic chamber filled with a special water. It was going to help them heal and stay alive. They would get oxygen from the special water and they would feed them through a special tube that come into the chamber. This is the only way they had a chance to survive. It could take years for their bodies to heal completely, but it’s their only chance. They would keep an eye on their progress through special computers. When they were better and ready, they would help them get back to us. 

What he had also learned, that this hospital tired to help people with experimental medicine. They couldn’t let people know about it. It was way to advanced for the hospitals right now anyway. It’s wonderful in the progress of medicine and science they have made there. Although, he also learned the down side to it as well. Those special beds were used to hold the souls of the expired until or if they could find their families. If they found them, they would give the soul and body back to the family for proper reaping and burial. Unfortunately, if they couldn’t find the family within six months, they would have to dispose of the body. The soul was then released to be forever bound to these world as a ghost. Then their plasma and other body fluids were drained and used as food for that strange flower. That’s what those connections were through the wall. They were feed lines to the strange flower. The energy that Vastra had felt when she touched the bed above, was from the soul of the expired. 

 ‘One of these days, I will find you! When I do, you will pay!’ Thought Phoenix. 

Six months has passed for the group of friends and their families. Carafe and Fornax and their parents are doing great. Their parents can travel back home to Sixam now. 

Phoenix and his sister are doing well too. Ursa is walking and talking now. She has made great progress. She is doing better than the Doctors ever expected this soon. She can go back home to Sixam as well. 

“Thank you so much for everything. I don’t know how we could ever repay you for all that you have done for us. You have truly been a wonderful friend.” Says Fornax.

“I’m just happy that I could help. Don’t forget me okay! You can come and visit anytime. The door is always open for you and your family.” Replies Nigel. 

“Thank you, and we will be visiting again someday. I promise!” Replies Fornax. 

The friends share one last hug before Fornax and his family leaves for Sixam. 

“I guess this is it, then. Take care of yourself.” Says Nigel. 

“I guess so, I will and you too.” Replies Phoenix. 

The two friends part ways and Phoenix enters his spaceship. They give one last wave goodbye to Nigel and close the door. 

“I think I better drive, you two might get the notion to stargaze again.” Says Fornax, laughing. 

The spaceship spins off past the beautiful horizon of the sky into vastness of stars and space to home.