Chapter Text
"Urghh, Melody! You're in my way!"
"Shh! They'll hear us!"
Two fox kits peeked from the corner of their bedroom, cautiously gazing around the dark hallway.
"Okay Skye, I think we're in the clear." Melody whispered, her orange and brown fur gently brushing the walls as she quietly scooted past her Father's office from her and her sister's bedroom. Thankfully, Father was on a business call discussing something job related, but the two girls did not care.
Melody gestured to Skye with a tail flick to the main entrance door. Skye quietly nodded, and walked with Melody to the door.
"Okay. Just make sure the door doesn't creak. Mother will KILL us if she hears." Skye nervously murmured.
"Shh!" Melody held her pointer finger up to her mouth.
"Geez, okay." Skye quietly mumbled, obviously annoyed.
Melody reached for the door handle. Her dainty gloves gently grasped the handle, and silently pulled the door's handle down. With silent ease, and fortunately no creaks, the door opened. Melody looked back at Skye, who looked like she had released all of the tension from her body.
Both kit's slowly walked outside, making sure their backpacks did not collide with each other. Melody closed the door as silently as possible, and both kits exchanged relieved facial expressions. They quickly ran away from their home's front porch and onto the neighborhood sidewalk. Their running turned into walking as they continued on their way.
"Okay then, we're outside the house! We... actually did it!" Skye cheered.
"I did most of the work, but you take the credit, I guess." Melody rolled her eyes.
"I did not! I was just sayin'-" Skye was interrupted with a hand on her mouth, Melody's to be specific.
"Jus' be quiet. D'ya got the flashlight?" Melody interrupted, her walking pace slowing just a bit.
Skye nodded and reached for her backpack to locate the flashlight. Just as planned, there was the flashlight in Skye's hand. Immediately, Skye turned the flashlight on, the light blasting into Melody's face.
"DUDE! Get that thing away from me, please!?" Melody scrunched her face up and covered her eyes with her hands.
Skye quickly turned the flashlight away from Melody's eyes.
"Sorry, sorry! I didn' mean it." Skye quickly stuttered out.
"Sure ya didn't," Melody groaned, "Anywho, uh... what were we doing... outside... flashlight... oh, yeah! Secret cave!" Melody squealed, her walking pace speeding up once more.
"Secret cave!" Skye chanted back.
"My friends at school told me that there's a cave in the forest with weird stuff! Maybe we can steal from it if we're lucky!" Melody grinned.
"Steal? But what if a guy lives there..?" Skye questioned.
"Whatever! They can just buy new stuff!" Melody dismissed the question.
"Oh... okay..."
The two quickly made a sharp turn off the sidewalk, and into the woods that were right next to it. Skye held the flashlight out towards the area. It was all trees, but that didn't stop Skye from being a little nervous.
"It wasn't too far in th' woods. It should be comin' up soon. We jus' gotta follow these rocks my friend threw out t'follow." Melody explained, gesturing to the bright, neon pink rocks.
"Ooh, rocks with glow in the dark paint! Which one of your friends has that paint?" Skye's eyes seemed to light up at that realization.
"Uh... pretty sure it was Joey...he's got a bunch'o paints like this... why do you ask?" Melody tilted her head a bit.
"Mama wouldn' let me get any paint stuff… she let me get pencils though.. but I wanted paint. Guess I'll borrow from Joey." Skye frowned.
"Why?" Melody asked.
"Because she thinks-"
"You'll end up like him?"
Skye looked at Melody in a slightly surprised manner. Her facial expression barely visible under the dark forest.
"Yea. Howdja know?" Skye raised an eyebrow.
"Mama said the same thing when I had to do a sculpture project with some scrap items from th' junkyard… something about recycling? It was for a school project, so I had to. She told the teacher t'not let me do the project though, and I don't have to do it anymore!" Melody giggled.
"Well that's good! Sculpting stuff doesn' sound fun!" Skye smiled, her eyes following more of the painted rocks.
The rest of the trip was silent from there. Eventually, with the power of a flashlight, and glow-in-the-dark rocks they found their way towards a cave. More specifically, the 'haunted' cave. The entrance was small, but it didn't matter to them.
"Is…this the place?" Skye asked.
"Are you serious? This is one of the only two caves in these woods. So obviously, yes!" Melody sighed.
"Oh, how spooky." Skye nervously stated.
Both kits slowly walked into the cave, Melody grabbing a flashlight from her backpack and turning it on.
"You had one the whole time!?" Skye shouted.
"Yeah, but I didn' really wanna turn mine on, it would alert th' neighbors if we used both flashlights." Melody explained.
"That's... pretty smart." Skye smiled.
"Thanks." Melody grinned back.
The two slowly entered the cave, both kits holding each other's hand in case of an emergency. Skye looked around with her flashlight, and something caught her eye.
"Hey, sis! There's a lantern right here! I'm gonna turn it on!"
"Uhhh, OK, don't die!" Melody jested, her voice ringing in Skye's ear.
Skye let go of her sister's hand and walked up to the lantern. Its rusty form made the fox kit wonder how long it had been since this object had last been touched. Maybe this place was abandoned after all. Who would even leave their stuff to rot like this? Skye reached for what looked to be a little switch, and gingerly clicked the switch to the 'On' setting. Very quickly, the cave turned from pitch black, to a bright and visible view of the whole cave.
"WOAHOHOH!" Skye exclaimed.
"Well, guess we brought these flashlights for nothin'. Eugh." Melody complained.
Both kits put their flashlights away, the cave was obviously abandoned. Plants started to grow over makeshift furniture and walls. There were a lot of tools, objects, and scrap metal laying all over the floor and shelves.
What piqued Skye's interest, however, was the dusty and scrappy journal that was next to the lantern on what looked to be a desk made out of a boulder.
Skye picked up the book and brushed off the layers upon layers of dust the book acquired. The book was actually a diary, as it stated on its cover. The book looked scraped up and worn out. Slightly icked, Skye ignored the word 'diary' on the cover and started reading the journal as if it were an adventure novel.
Meanwhile, Melody had discovered a shelf filled with... dusty blue papers? Melody didn't quite understand why they were blue, but she didn't care. They looked to have sketches of machinery of some sorts. Each one labeled with extremely scribbled out handwriting only an infant could ever understand.
'Ah, so a mad scientist lived here, brilliant.' Melody thought.
These sketches were sort of a bore to Melody, until there was one her eyes got stuck on.
It was labeled 'Projekc: Esclap Wesbite'.
Melody snorted at the horrid spelling, but decided to take a gander at the paper. Maybe this mad scientist had lost their mind so much they couldn't even spell?
The crumpled-up paper had a little messy, but well executed drawing of a high-tech air balloon, the number of details astonished Melody. There was even a drawing of the inside in a small corner. There were a bunch of scribbled numbers pointing to certain areas of the structure that Melody didn't quite understand. The name of the drawing confused her, though. Who would ever want to escape a place like Westside? Especially if you have technology as advanced as that to help the village?
Melody shook her head and continued flipping through every invention this scientist had.
She saw all sorts of things like planes, hovercraft, and even a submarine, of sorts. Melody exhaled, and tossed the papers back on the shelf without a care.
Skye turned to 'page one' and started to read the diary.
Skye also saw a bunch of scribbles only a toddler could understand, but she found it quite easy to decipher, she used to write like this. Father thought it was amusing enough.
The first page deciphered read as follows:
"Dear Diary,
Hi. I'm going to write to you every day, because you might be the only friend I have. I found you in the trash, you looked sad with a lot of owwies, so here I am writing to you. I think you know who I am already, so I'll skip that. Hope we have a nice time together.
Sincerely,
Diary Owner."
Oh, it was a diary. Should she really be reading someone's personal stuff?
Skye shrugged, it didn't matter to her, it was abandoned, who was going to be able to tell the tale of this diary if nobody read it?
Skye sighed and kept reading, flipping through pages and pages of scribbled tech lingo and explanations. She didn't really care for those.
Until, one stood out to her.
It read:
'Dear Diary,
I don't know what to do. It all hurts. They found me again when I was looking for food to eat. I was so hungry, and Mama found me too, she doesn't like me, by the way. I think that's ok though, I am a monster living in the woods. Mama thinks it's scary that I can write and read, and I thought it was good? Kids that go to school are liked for it. But that doesn't matter. She stole my food from me, though. But I guess that is normal. They all don't like me much. They do that all the time. What should I do, diary?
P.S. you need a new name. I can tell you don't like your name. So let me help! How about we go with plants. I love plants! Maybe like Basil, Daffodil, or Wormwood? Let me know if you like those.
-Diary Owner'
Skye didn't understand. To be left out on your own by your Mother just because you were advanced in school just did not make sense. Her Mother would NEVER do such a thing.
Skye kept flipping through page after page, each page told a new story about a new invention, or a new injury from bullies. This... gifted engineer, of sorts, was being outcasted and hated because of their talents. She desperately wanted to know the identity of this mysterious engineer. She thought the story sounded familiar… but she couldn't quite put a name to this person.
If only she knew how soon she'd get it.
Melody kept walking around the small cave, her eyes peering at a dried up moss bed. It looked to be very uncomfortable, she felt kinda bad for the poor soul who had to sleep there.
She stared a bit more, and kept moseying around, finding new things like poor excuses of mechanical tools, scrap metal from soup cans, broken utensils you name it, it was probably in that yucky, scrap metal pile.
Melody put her hand on the wall now overgrown with plants, and let it sit there for a bit, letting some thoughts come to her mind.
'Why couldn't this person just... leave? They obviously wanted out of here, and they obviously had the supplies. Living here would make me want to go insane.'
Melody turned her head and saw a loose rock on the wall of uncovered stone. Her eyebrow raised.
"Hey, Skye... do you see that?"
"Mrrrrr... I'm trying to read, sis." Skye groaned.
"Of course you are. Have fun with that." Melody said sarcastically.
She walked up to the loose rocks, and found the one she was looking for, quickly taking the rock out with ease. Her eye peeked in the hole she opened, and it was pitch black. She stopped peeking and opted for her hand to go in. She flailed her hand around the hole until she felt something hit her hand.
Melody flinched at the object that hit her, but she tried to grab it anyway. With success, she got a grasp at a thin, flat object, and pulled it out of the dark compartment.
"Hey, Skye, I'm over here findin' stuff, and you're jus' sittin' there! Aren'tcha getting tired?" Melody complained.
"I'm reading." Skye blandly stated, turning another page of the diary.
"You're boring." Melody scoffed.
"Same to you."
"Whatever."
Melody rolled her eyes, and turned her head to the mysterious object she found. It was a photo, of sorts. It was in black and white, so it must be ancient.
And the photo had two foxes on it. The photo read 'First Smile!', with one big fox, and one abnormally small fox bundled up in blankets. It was obvious the big fox was the father. The father had an eyepatch over one of their eyes, and wore an unbuttoned shirt. So... a pirate? Melody didn't know. Melody then looked at the other fox, and assumed that one must be the baby, but this baby looked so... weak. The fox kit's eyes and ears were barely opened. This must have been a super early picture of the baby.
Melody's eyes moved to a bunch of numbers, understanding that it was a date instantly.
The picture was only eight years old.
"...That doesn't make sense... why is it in black and white, then?" Melody quietly whispered.
She'd show this to her Mother. Mother wrote in newspapers, and always brought a camera with her to take pictures. Maybe she'd know why?
Melody stuffed the picture into her backpack, and continued looking.
Skye flipped through another page of the diary author rambling about technology. This mad scientist must have really liked engineering, but Skye knew she could never be an engineer, her Mother would be so disappointed in her. Even though she did find the field of engineering cool…
Another page caught her eye, but this time. It made her eyes widen.
This page read:
'Dear Wormwood,
Sorry, diary, it's been a few weeks. I don't understand what's happening to me. This doesn't make sense. There's a blue hedgehog guy running around the area... and they actually pulled me away from the villagers giving me owwies.
That's not what's supposed to happen, and you know that.
You know my story, usually I'm supposed to stay there and deal with the owwies. The blue guy asked if I was okay, but... why would they ask that? Why do they care?
Is it because my two freaky tails are tied up?'
Skye gasped loudly at that sentence. There was no way.
"M-melody. I... you gotta read this."
"I'll be there in a second! I'm looking through some stuff!" Melody shouted, stuffing random items into her backpack.
Skye's heart raced out of pure shock. This book had a huge plot twist in it. She continued to read,
'Oh yeah, I never told you, Wormwood. I got two freaky tails. And sometimes they do weird stuff. They make me really bad at walking, too. My right tail is always in the way, I trip all the time. And everyone doesn't like my tails, so my Mom made me tie them up. I don't like them either, but I'm stuck with them.
Anyways, this blue hedgehog has been helping me for the past week. I... don't understand, Wormwood. Why? Why are they helping?
All my owwies are feeling better, the blue guy put some stuff on them to help. I've been fixing their plane in return. They had a plane, Wormwood! A plane! And they looked so surprised when they saw I could fix it.
They even asked me if I wanted to leave this island with them.
What do I do, Wormwood?
~Diary owner
P.S., I've decided on Wormwood. Is that okay? I think it suits you. You're named after a plant that heals people; you healed me… I think? I learned a new word from the dictionary called 'sentimental', and I think that fits the name, OK? OK, hope we can talk soon.'
Skye set the diary down and flipped it over in order to save the page for Melody. This cave... Belonged to him?
How? Why? Why did he choose to live this life when he could obviously just buy a house and live there? Was it because he was a monster?
"Hey, planet to Skye... Skye? Don't die on me! You promised!" Melody's voice rang in Skyes ear. Skye flinched and turned around to her sister.
"M-melody. You have to read this. I found out who the owner of the cave is." Skye trembled.
"Is it actually a mad scientist?"
"Maybe? Some sort of curse-"
"OH! A witch was in here?" Melodys eyes almost looked like they turned into stars.
"NO! just read!" Skye forced the book into Melody's grasp.
"Geez, what's your problem?" Melody groaned, as she moved the book to the correct position in her hands and started reading.
Skye watched as Melody's face turned into a freaked out expression as she read. Melody slammed the book shut and set it on the dusty rock table.
"HE lived here?" Melody gasped.
"I'm just as freaked out as you!" Skye chattered.
"We need to get out of here, quick! Or the curse might get to us. It probably already has!"
Melody grabbed ahold of Skye's hand, making the latter squeak out of shock, and they both sprinted out of the cave.
Skye secretly grabbed the diary from the table as she was dragged out of the cave and put it in her backpack. How she managed, she'd never know.
Melody kept her eyes on the brightly painted rocks and hastily followed each one. It was dawn already, and their parents would be so angry if they found out they were in HIS cave. Melody felt the adrenaline kick in, and took a sharp turn out of the woods and onto the sidewalk.
Skye squeaked as she almost tripped and fell to the ground.
Both sisters were so tired, but they didn't care.
"We're- we're almost there Skye! Keep your feet moving!" Melody turned back to Skye who gave a nervous smile.
"I'm trying, I'm trying!" Skye whined.
The two turned their heads to the left and immediately recognized their house. Melody sharply turned again to the direction of their house and clumsily slowed down to a walk to the front porch, with Skye following suit.
The two heavily panted and looked at one another with wide eyes. They actually escaped, with no curse.
"Never. Again." Melody managed to breathe out.
Skye nodded.
They had been sitting at the doorstep for about ten minutes now, trying to catch their breath. Skye reached for her backpack and pulled out a house key, she located the keyhole, and put the key in, she turned it to the right, and the door made a satisfactory 'click!' noise. Skye and Melody slowly and quietly opened the door, hoping it wouldn't squeak.
Thankfully, it didn't.
But something much worse was waiting for them at the other side of the door.
The girls walked into their house and noticed the light was on.
'Ohhhh no.' Melody thought.
"Where have you two been? Your Mother and I have been worried sick about you two!" A raspy, deep voice came from the hallway.
The voice came from a tall, red fox. His business suit was still on, and his eyes were in slits.
'No… Papas is so mad at us…' Skye nervously thought.
He walked over to the two girls and sniffed around them a bit.
"We…. Uhm, so… Uh…We were-" Skye nervously stammered.
"You smell like poison ivy, were you in the woods?!" Father growled.
Both girls trembled nervously and gave each other panicked glances.
"Sweet Gaia below. Come on, let's get you to your Mother so she can help clean you up," Their Father gestured to the sisters to go to their parents' room.
Both girls nodded and they followed behind Father. The two sisters looked at each other, knowing very well the consequences of their actions.
After the quick walk, they got into their parent's bedroom, the sister's mother gave them a concerned glance. Both girls looked at Mother in shame, trying to keep close to the bedroom's entrance.
"Girls… where were you? Be honest." Mother questioned. She brushed her signature rose-pink dress with her gloved hand.
"In the woods," Skye shamefully stated.
Melody harshly nudged her sister
"WHY would you say that? You're supposed to lie, dummy!" Melody quietly growled.
"Lying is gonna get us nowhere, butthead!" Skye stuck out her tongue at her sister.
"I think YOU are the butthead, butthead!" Melody growled slightly louder, alerting Father.
"GIRLS." Father growled.
Both girls stopped bickering and guiltily looked up at Mother.
"Skye, and Melody Prower…" Mother grumbled.
"Yes, Mama?" The sisters groaned in unison.
"Never, I mean never EVER. Do that again."
Mother paused, very aware her children were scared.
"...You know how dangerous those woods are. You're lucky your punishment isn't that big this time. No leaving the house this weekend, okay? Do it again, and the punishment will be worse." Mother narrowed her gaze.
"Yes, ma'am." Skye stated.
"WHAT? That's not fair! Me and my friends were gonna hang out tomorrow!" Melody pouted.
"Well, that's too bad," Mother scolded. "You can have your privileges when the weekend is done, you can always hang out next weekend, okay?"
Melody agreed with a nonverbal nod.
"Well, now that that's settled," Mother sighed, and got off her bed to give both her kids a kiss on their foreheads. "Let's get you two a bath n-"
"Wait, Mama. I have a question." Melody squeaked out.
"What is it, my dear?" Mother asked, her paws straightening the roses on her head.
"I found something in the woods, it's a photo." Melody reached for her backpack still on her back, and gently pulled the photo out of the bag.
Skye peeked over at the photo and allowed her eyebrow to raise.
"Of course, dearie. Let me see it." Mother gestured with her hands to give the photo to her.
Melody walked up and handed her Mother the photo. Her Mother rearranged herself on the bed and crossed her legs. The sisters and their Father saw how Mother's eyes narrowed, how her eyebrows furrowed, how she clenched her teeth.
"You… found this in the woods?" Mother growled, attempting not to sound extremely angry at her children.
"Y-yea? I was wondering why a photo of this age was in black and white." Melody stammered.
"Do you know what this is a picture of?" Mother growled slightly louder. Walking over to a lamp to examine the photo further, Father not too far behind.
Both kits shrugged.
"What did they find, 'Mary?" Father sighed as he walked over to get a look at the photo.
"It's a photo of my ex-husband… and the monster he decided to raise." Mother whispered to Father.
Skye and Melody's slightly sensitive ears heard the conversation the two were having.
That was all they needed to hear.
"That was… Speed limit sign?" Skye whispered to her sister as she shook her head in confusion.
"That's what I said!" Melody whispered back.
Both girls continued to listen to their parent's conversation.
"I didn't know Amadeus even took this photo. Thank goodness Miles' deformity isn't in the picture." Mother snarled.
"I haven't actually seen your ex-husband or your first-born before. Your ex-husband was the war general, eh?" Father glanced lovingly at Mother.
"Urgh, this man keeps appearing in my life, even though he's dead. You know I…gave birth to a monster, Brandon."
There was a pause between the two parents.
"...Miles' spine was split in half because of its… extra tail. It couldn't even walk until it was two, because of those things. It wasn't supposed to survive for that long, anyway! That didn't stop it from crawling around, though. Even then, it would not stop trying to build violent machines and destroy my home, and my reputation. Do you realize how scary that is for a Mother to take care of?" Mother explained.
Father gently cradled Mother in his arms.
"And Miles' Father wanted to save it. I didn't want him or Miles in my life anymore after I threw them out. Should've thrown Miles out with its father, maybe then I would finally have peace." Mother continued and looked back at the picture again.
"I'm sorry you had to do that, 'Mary… Here, let me throw this in the garbage for you." Father kissed Mother on the forehead, taking the photo from the marble fox. Father glanced at the two kits.
"What are you two doing over there? Go to the bathroom! I'll meet you there to help get you cleaned! Shoo!" Mother exclaimed.
Skye and Melody walked out of their parent's room and quickly got into the bathroom, shutting the door behind them.
"Speed limit sign's spine is split in half?" Skye rubbed her back as if to check if her spine had the same issue.
"I don't wanna think about that… that's…. Uuueghgh... I feel like I can feel every bone in my body because of that. Eugh." Melody shivered, almost unsettled by the fact.
They both stared in silence as they looked in the bathroom mirror at each other.
"I think… We learned more about him than we wanted to. I just wanted to learn about a photograph, but it's always about our reject, half-sibling!" Melody sighed.
"Why does she care so much about that freak anyways?" Skye complained, grabbed her toothbrush near the sink and went in the sink cupboard to locate toothpaste.
"I dunno! Ugh, ever since we first met 'em, Mom and Dad sure don't shut up about him! All I know is what Miles did was wrong." Melody angrily exclaimed.
Skye nodded and started brushing her teeth, making sure she got every nook and cranny.
"I still don't understand why Miles just accepted he was born with a curse, and doesn' think it's wrong. Can't he just fix it at this point? Y'know, surgery?" Melody looked at her sister, looking for an answer to her query. Skye did not look back, as she was still messily brushing her teeth.
"His spine is split in half, stupid! Do you ever listen? There's no way to save that! And plus… remember when his tails turned into hands..? How do you even fix that? Like… I would be screamin' if my tail just did that!" Skye babbled, removing the toothbrush from her mouth.
"...Don't remind me." Melody grumbled.
There was a silence between the sisters. Skye rubbed her eyes, and gently yawned.
"...Do you… ever think Mother's lying to us about Miles?" Melody looked at her sister with genuine curiosity.
"Oh, well duh! Yea! But I don' really care. She is right on a majority of parts of Miles' story, though." Skye shrugged.
"Yea, I guess so. We get taken care of 'real nice, so I don't really care either." Melody agreed softly.
"Speaking of Miles, look what I managed to grab!" Skye grinned, all of her teeth showing.
"Oh, what is it?" Melody curiously asked.
Skye immediately reached for her backpack, and easily grabbed a small, but bulky book
The Diary.
Melody screeched.
"WHY DO YOU HAVE THAT IN HERE?" Melody almost passed out.
"I… thought I'd grab it, so…like, we could mail it back to the owner. So like, the island is completely scraped free from the curse the speed limit sign put on it!" Skye explained, putting the book back quickly in her backpack.
"Not a bad idea, but… don't scare me like that, jeez!" Melody let out a sigh of relief.
"Sorry, yeesh! I think I'll mail this out next week? I... dunno?" Skye fidgeted with her backpack's straps.
"Just uhm, jus' try not to bring that cursed object close to me," Melody huffed.
"You act like this is a whole Gri… Grimier- Grimiiorn… whatever it's called..?" Skye grumbled.
"Grimoire?" Melody whispered.
"WHY do you even know how to say that word?" Skye questioned.
"And WHY do you even know that word in the first place?" Melody questioned back.
"Just shut up." Skye growled.
"OK, just as long as you shut up!" Melody yelled back.
"Fine." Skye quietly growled
"Fine!" Melody angrily squeaked.
Skye sighed and pouted, she knows she's going to do the right thing, she just needed to find the right time and place to give this book to its owner.