Chapter Text
He clambered up the stairs, quick and uncaring as to how loud he was. Cresting the top, he swung around the railing, only to pause at the sight of his parent’s room.
The door was open to show his dad was inside, surrounded by boxes, folded clothes, and various other knicknacks he seemed to be sorting through. The child crept closer, stopping by the frame to peer around. The room was already half as bare as usual.
“Dad?”, he spoke up, making the man tense and face him. “What’re you doing?”
Dad sighed, uncharacteristically somber. (Or maybe not so uncharacteristic. He hardly saw his parents happy around each other anymore.)
Dad gestured for him to come closer. He did so, and his dad laid a hand on his arm as he looked him in the eye.
“I’m moving out.”
The ground was still.
That was the first thing that Seven noticed as he was dragged into awareness, for it was the most out of place feature. He hardly ever noticed the rocking of the Maw anymore, but the absence of it was jarring.
The second thing he noticed was the water lapping at his legs, followed by the grit digging into his face, then the funny feeling in his lungs.
He coughed, though it did nothing to alleviate that feeling, and started shifting his sore limbs. Painstakingly slow, he unclamped his fingers from the death grip he had on the splintered crate and pushed himself onto his palms to give a bleary glance around. Sand stretched on either side of him, the dividing line between the ocean and the forest.
A beach.
Land.
The waves splashed him again, and he pulled himself away as quick as he could. (He was sure it was too shallow for anything to reach up and pull him under, but…well, you couldn’t be too careful.)
Getting to his feet, he examined the area a bit more closely. Dotted around was driftwood, broken boxes, and other debris that must’ve fallen overboard.
(The storm felt like it had come out of nowhere, with a grudge specifically against them. Seven was sure they were spotted during all the chaos, but that soon became null as the boat tipped dangerously, and they were sent plummeting–)
But among the wreckage, he couldn’t spot a single other person.
“Mono?”, he called, though he knew he was far too quiet. He tried to be louder with, “Six!”, but his voice broke off into a round of coughs.
He shivered as the wind whipped at him, the fact he was soaking wet not doing any favors. He gave another worried glance at his surroundings. Were they just farther away? Or was he the only one who had made it ashore, the other two still drifting at sea…
“Hey!”
He whipped his head to the shout, relief coursing through him at the sight of Six running towards him. She was just as soaking and dirty as he was, but aside from the slight stumble in her step, she seemed fine.
She stopped in front of him, taking a minute to catch her breath. “Seen Mono yet?”, she asked once she could.
Seven shook his head. “I just woke up.”
She frowned. “Let’s keep walking.”, she decided, waving for him to follow. He nodded, moving to take the first step,
And proceeded to fall flat on his face.
“...Ow.”
Right. Still ground. Still ground he hadn’t walked on in what was probably years. He was going to have to get used to that.
Six, the traitor, snickered above him. But she was quick to pull him back up, and they began to stumble their way down the shoreline.
Seven couldn’t tell how long they walked. The beach spanned long and far and unchanging. The only marker they were getting anywhere at all was a shape in the distance that was steadily getting closer.
All the while, they didn’t see a single sign of Mono. Not an item or an imprint of where he had been. Anxiety curled in his gut the longer they went without finding anything.
Eventually, they got close enough to the landmark for him to make out what it was.
Trees. Dead ones, washed out and fallen on their sides. They piled on top of each other in a massive tangle, stretching down the shore to a cliff that rose above them. There was something else on top of the cliff, a white and black lighthouse that could even be seen above the leaves.
The kids weaved through trunks, branches, and roots. Seven couldn’t help but wonder at the new terrain, so much different from anything on the Maw. It was all much more organic, and his eyes traced the shapes, leading his sight back to the ground where he spotted a disturbance in the sand.
Footprints.
“Look.”, he pointed out to Six. They were definitely the footprints of a kid, leading through the tree graveyard and into the woods. The trail faded out there, but a beaten path wasn’t far away.
The forest was loud. Nothing like the empty, echoing expanses of most of the Maw, and more like the chatter of the Nursery. Birds, and snaps, and wind, all of it surrounding them as they pressed upwards.
They were led to a flatter section of land, which was primarily occupied by the large lighthouse. Seven had to tilt his head all the way back just to see the top of it.
There was a shape sticking out from the walkway, and he squinted at it. Whatever it was, it looked like it was waving in the wind…no, not the wind.
It was waving at them.
He quickly spied a door, already propped open and easy for him to slip inside. Even though he had seen the height from outside, he still gawked at the several flights of stairs that spiraled above him.
“Mono!” He winced at the volume of his own voice, echoing up through the tower. A moment later, he got a reply.
“Hey!”
Seven and Six watched as Mono bounded down the stairs, skipping every so often with a flash. By the time he made it to them, he was very much out of breath, but still beamed.
“You both made it!”
They had. They all survived, they all reached land, they all were safe.
He let that thought sink in. They had actually made it off the Maw. They had actually made it to land. He had never had a solid idea of what it would be like on the day that he would escape, only seeing it as a faraway someday.
But now that someday was here.
He was going home.
“I saw a house close to here.”, Mono continued, pointing in its presumed direction. “Should we check it out?”
The other two nodded, and they exited the lighthouse, letting Mono lead them to the rocky path. They trailed along the dips and twists, soon enough coming across a stone-brick wall.
The wall enclosed the yard of the house, but it was hardly an obstacle for these kids. A quick climb later, they were heading towards the porch.
Mono spotted the open window, hopping from a rocking chair to it, and motioning the others to follow. They emerged into what appeared to be a cozy living room.
There was a couch right below them which they landed on, and a worn coffee table and rug in front of it. Few photographs dotted the walls that were otherwise occupied by a pair of doorways. One led to a kitchen, while the other was concealed.
The kids split up, Mono beginning to poke around the living room while Six broke off towards the kitchen. Seven wandered up to the closed door, surprised to find it was actually ajar.
Poking his head inside, he was met with a cramped study. Shelves lined two of the walls, filled with various books and trinkets, while the others were taken up by a desk below a window, and a large map.
Seven entered fully, dragging the desk’s chair over to the map and hopping on top to get a closer look. The amount of criss-crossing lines and letters was almost dizzying, but he carefully picked out the names, searching for that specific one…
But there was not a single Buji on the map.
His shoulders slumped. Right. Yeah. Of course they wouldn’t just happen to wash up in the right place. They’d have to be luckier than they already were for that.
He didn’t even know where Buji actually was. All he had was a town and house, and no real way to find either of them. It could be on the other side of the world for all he knew!
This…this wasn’t nearly as close to be over as he thought, was it?
“Hey.”
Seven jumped, spinning around to see Mono leaning through the doorway and waving.
“We found some food.”, he informed.
Seven tried to keep his dejection from showing as he followed Mono to the kitchen where Six still was. Several boxes had been pulled from a cabinet and now surrounded her, though she was munching on what looked like a shriveled stick.
“You sure the meat’s good?”, Mono asked her as they approached.
She nodded. “It’s fresh.”
Taking that as enough assurance, he took one of the sticks from the pack and offered another to Seven. He took a bite. It was tough, but otherwise was fine.
Mono seemed to disagree, though, as his face immediately scrunched up. “It’s so salty. ”, he complained, even as he continued to eat it.
Seven hummed. “Not really.”
“You just think that ‘cause you’re used to that super salty cafeteria food.”, Mono argued.
“Or maybe you’re just used to bland food.”
“Wait.”, Six interrupted, making them both look at her. Her eyes were wide with realization. “The food’s fresh.”
Seven only frowned, confused, but Mono’s face also fell, apparently reaching the same conclusion she had.
“Someone’s living here.”
Right on cue, a door opened in the other room. The group jumped to their feet and scattered. Six ducked into the cabinet, Mono shoved himself in a gap beside the fridge, and Seven dove under the table.
He pressed against the wall and the leg, curling up into as small of a ball as he could. The floor reverberated with heavy steps, steadily growing louder and louder until the adult finally appeared.
Seven could only see the thick boots and brown pants, languidly making their way across the kitchen. Then the adult stuttered to a stop, right in front of all the boxes they’d left lying out.
Their bones creaked as they kneeled down, revealing the adult to be wearing a white shirt and have a scraggly, gray beard. He picked up the pack of jerky, mumbling as he examined it curiously.
Seven held his breath as the adult reached for the cupboard Six was in. The moment it was opened, he caught a flash of yellow, immediately followed by a clatter.
“Damn rats.”, the man muttered. He looked around, snatching one of the boxes and haphazardly tossing out the contents. Holding it at the ready, he started throwing open cabinets.
Six didn’t give him the chance to catch up, instead bursting out and zipping across the kitchen. She just barely managed to avoid the box being brought down on her, and the adult’s eyes widened as he realized what he was trying to catch was not, in fact, a rat.
“What–”
The man stood up and gave chase, and Mono popped out of hiding a moment later. “Backdoor!”, he called as he ran to the other end of the kitchen. It took an extra moment for Seven to jolt his limbs into action, scrambling after him.
There was indeed a second door, and Seven quickly boosted Mono to the handle. Now unlatched, he pulled it open, and they dashed outside. Six appeared around the corner not a second later, sprinting towards them as the adult also came into view.
“You kids aren't supposed to be up ‘ere–!” But his words fell on deaf ears as the group vanished into the foliage.
Running downhill was not a struggle Seven had known, but it took a lot of effort to not trip over roots or rocks or his own feet. He didn’t stop until his lungs began to burn, and even then he kept pushing.
The group finally slowed to a halt, ears keen for any sign of pursuit. It was hard to hear over the noise of the forest, or their own ragged breathing, but there didn’t seem to be any disturbance.
One by one, they each caught their breath, and continued their trek.
They marched through the woods in silence, occasionally slowing to go over or around the rough terrain. But eventually, the land smoothed out, and they came across another set of buildings. These were not like the house, bigger and blockier. Looking past revealed similar buildings, all lined along a grid of roads.
A town.
Creeping between the buildings, they huddled in the shadows of the alley. Cars zipped past, and few adults strolled on the sidewalks. It looked…normal. The most normal any of them had seen for a long time.
Still, none of them left the shadows. Seven examined the roads, searching for the right opening…
“Where are we going?”, Six cut in.
He looked back at the other two, only to freeze when he found them both looking back at him.
Right. They were looking to him to lead. It was his home, his goal, his idea to invite them along. He should know where to start. They just had to…had to…
“I don’t know.”, he whispered, breath picking up speed. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know where to go. I don’t even think we’re close, I–”
Stupid, stupid, why was he so stupid? Of course there was more to it, of course there was another step. He won one battle just to fight in the next, never getting closer, never truly finished, and why couldn’t ever he think far enough ahead?
“Hey.” Seven hadn’t realized he was pulling at his hair until Mono tugged his hands away. He kept holding them as he assured, “We’ll figure it out. We already made it this far, we just gotta...keep going. We’ll get somewhere if we start walking.”
Seven could only shrug mutely. If that was the best plan they had…
Mono took that as enough of an agreement, letting go of one of his hands to take Six’s. All three of them faced the town, with roads stretching far and buildings looming high. Just a taste of how big the world truly was.
With a breath in and out, Seven moved to take the first step.
And started walking.