Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The road in front of her was empty, the only thing visible was the snow that filled the road and the forest that was cut through years ago. The moon’s shine wasn’t visible, as the clouds covered every possible crack that light could come through. She was lucky that she fixed her car lights a few days ago, as driving here would have been impossible without them. 

The snow was beginning to pile up, her GPS was showing that she would reach Faraway in 3 minutes, and yet she was still worried she would not reach there. The trip was tiring, she was already exhausted by the five hour drive from the city to here. 

She tried not to think about the memories that have been making her life a nightmare for the past couple of months, but every time she looked at the map, she felt her heart start to beat quicker and quicker.

She focused on her heart again, her blood getting pumped faster and faster, as the white powder and her lack of anything besides the clothes she packed made return impossible at this point. 

She tried to focus on the road, gripping the steering wheel as tightly as she could and making sure that she was driving straight. It didn’t help her.

She suddenly slammed her left leg into the brakes, stopping the car and making it slide slightly. The wheels made an ear-piercing screech, as if someone was drifting. The car went to a full stop in mere seconds. 

She looked at the darkness in front of her. Small snowflakes began to gather on the window faster than before. Her breaths were heavy and slow, her eyes staring at the GPS.

She put on the coat she had thrown to the backseats of the car, and went outside. She felt a very cold sensation around her feet; the snow was deeper than she expected. The woman looked at her car, at the road and then at the sky. 

She screamed and slammed the door of her vehicle, before walking around it. Her thoughts shouted at her, making sure that she knew that this whole trip was a bad idea.

The dark forest around her was silent, she was in the middle of nowhere. The road she was driving on would soon be covered by a layer of snow so tall and thick, she would be completely stuck. No cars were coming, left or right. 

The only sounds that she could hear was the cold breeze that made her tears fly away before freezing and becoming one with the snow, her heavy and slow breathing, and her racing heart.

The woman began to cry, she hit her back against the car, making a loud thud. No animals or creatures went out of the forest. No birds flying in the cloudy sky. The only light was the one emitted by her car and the GPS inside. The wind started to pick up, as the snow started to fall faster, reminding her of the fact that she had to go to Faraway. It was too late to go back now.

~~~

They say that Christmas starts once you see the first star in the sky. If that would be true, Christmas would not start that day. Luckily for Kel, his family didn’t believe in that myth. Their whole house was brightly decorated with Christmas lights, reminding everyone in the neighbourhood what time of the year it was. 

Kel was sitting on his bed, waiting for his parents to call him downstairs. The smell of food was overwhelming his nose, he really wanted to go and start eating. Sadly for Kel, his parents knew that once he sat down, half of the food would be gone before they would actually start celebrating. 

He stood up and looked out of the window, a snowstorm was ravaging Faraway. The wind was whistling through his window, its cold slowly leaking into the room. He looked towards Hero’s bed, it was empty as his brother was preparing food for the occasion. Kel sighed, feeling like Hero ignored his existence even when he was at home. Like everyone else.

“KEEEELLL!” He could hear his dad shout from downstairs. Kel rushed towards the door, opened it as quickly as possible and ran downstairs. 

His steps were so loud, that their neighbours would probably file a noise complaint if they weren’t playing the radio and tv themselves. Kel was about to enter the dining room and start eating, when suddenly the front door opened. The door was thrown into the wall, as the snow and wind flew straight into the house. 

A familiar person stood in the door frame, their clothes covered completely in snow. The person quickly came in and closed the door, before the Christmas Tree fell down due to the sudden wind. Some of the presents got hit in the crossfire, as they were getting covered in snow that was coming from the outside world.

“You’re actually here!” Kel’s mother shouted out loud, coming into the room and approaching the guest.

Only at this moment, did Kel realise who this was. Sunny’s mother. Kel could see Hero look from the kitchen at the two, before he rushed upstairs and went into the bathroom. Kel followed him, and eavesdropped on what he was doing. Kel soon wished he didn’t do that, as he heard his brother vomit. He had hoped his brother’s reaction wouldn’t be so severe, it was just a memory after all.

“Kel! We are waiting for you~!” Kel’s mother shouted, waking her child up from a trance. He looked at her confused, as everyone was already sitting at the table. 

It seems that he spaced out, again. He walked to the kitchen and saw everyone staring at him; eyes. Hero was still looking pale, sitting as far as he could from the unexpected guest. Sunny’s last family member looked at him worryingly, before noticing that he was staring back and turning her eyes towards the food.

Kel sat down on the last available seat, next to Hero and Sally. The yearly ceremony continued as usual, it was just a lot quieter than anyone expected. During the whole ordeal, a couple of things happened. 

They mainly included Hero constantly checking if the water was running by turning on the sink upstairs, and flushing the toilet; or Kel spacing out at random times, sometimes with food in his mouth. The whole celebration felt like a big blur, as if time had just flown by.

After most of the food was gone (shockingly, as Kel and his dad would normally leave nothing on the plates), the two mothers started whispering to each other. Kel was not in a mood to eavesdrop the conversation. The result was very visible though, as the woman quickly left the household.

No one had commented on her sudden decision to leave.

~~~

The woman left the house of her past neighbours. When she got invited a few days back, she thought about saying no and spending this Christmas-

Alone. Her husband went on a business trip for the first time in years, something both of them didn’t want, but his boss insisted. Her eyes started to water again, thinking about that again. The falling snow would make sure no one would see her tears.

After some thought, she decided to accept the offer. And so she drove for a couple of hours in the snow. She decided to sleep in the, now abandoned, house of hers. She didn’t actually put it on sale once-

The snow was already reaching her knees. Her car was unusable until she took the snow out of the equation, and her now broken door... She took out the keys of her pocket, and started to stick every single key, one by one, into the keyhole. Her luck made her cycle through 4 keys before she got the right one.

The door to her past happiness opened, as the loud creak of its joints made sure she knew the place was as old as she thought it was. She rushed into it, and slammed the door shut before any snow could cover the floors. The woman didn’t really realise her mistake, as the only source of light was one of the windows. 

The air was still and cold, the whole place felt like walking into an abandoned mansion. It was unfriendly to her, even though it shouldn’t have been. Remnants of who she once was were lingering around, to tease her and remind her of how bad of a person she was.

She waited a bit, staying still, as her eyes adjusted to the darkness around her. She didn’t really know what to do until a sudden wave of sleepiness hit her. Walking towards the staircase, the woman felt a bit… dizzy. 

Knowing that she had been mostly inside for the past hours, in the car’s stuffy air or the Christmas uncomfortable breaths of her friend’s house, she fought her sleepiness. With her coat still on, the woman went into her tainted garden.

Her steps were quickly imprinted into the snow, the cold dust of Earth. She sometimes wished that it was grey so that she didn’t see its noisy texture. The woman shook her head, getting rid of that thought. With her empty mind, she took a deep breath and felt a lot better.

Avoiding looking at the stump that was still weighing on her, she got to the treehouse that these children had built here. It still looked intact, even if somewhat old. She felt her tears gather up below her eyes, making her sight a little bit more blurry. Before she could fall into her ocean of thoughts, a small gust of wind hit her, making the tree suddenly creak and move a lot more than it should have. 

With the cold getting to her, and the snow slowly melting on her body, she returned home… closing her eyes when walking next to that dreaded tree she floated on. The air of the house made her sleepy again. She yawned, while putting her coat back on the couch and closing the glass door.

The woman quickly went up the stairs, and into her room. Her bed was visibly empty, with only a single cold mattress she hadn’t taken months ago. It was a bit humbling that she had to sleep on it, but it was  better than the car seats. As if she could enter the car after hitting it so many times.

It took her less than a thought to flop onto her bed, and quickly fall asleep. Not ready for anything that tomorrow was going to serve.

~~~

“Hero, are you sleeping?” Kel asked, lying down on his bed in his pyjamas, it was almost midnight. Their room was dark, darker than the snow dancing outside. The two brothers should have been sleeping half an hour ago. The clock was ticking rhythmically, not slowing down. 

Time was always going forward at the same rate. Hours after Sunny’s mother had left the table, the whole house was still brimming with tension. The brothers had been talking less for the past few months, but today was one of the most abysmal days since-

“No.” he responded quietly, “I can’t sleep.” Hero turned in his bed, trying to find a good enough position to fall asleep in. The blanket always felt wrong for him, which was weird, since sleeping hadn’t been an issue for a while. 

There was always a crease, or a cold spot, or something else that made him want to sleep on the floor instead of the bed… even if the floor was probably colder. Kel stayed quiet for a while. The silence was more deafening than the snow that was falling onto the ground and the roof of their christmas-themed houses.

“This was the worst Christmas ever.” Kel stated, making his brother chuckle and turn towards him. He kicked off the blanket before pulling it back to him, straightening it a little so that its creases wouldn’t potentially wake him up

“It wasn't that bad,” Hero lied.

“Why did we invite Sunny’s Mother?” Kel asked, “Couldn’t we have invited Basil or Aubrey? Someone that… is less…”

“Less quiet?” Hero tried to finish his sentence.

“I mean… we don’t know her,” Kel explained, “She just appeared, ate our food, and left.”

“Yeah… you’re right.” Hero yawned, the cold making him a bit sleepier.

Before he could continue talking to Kel, he could hear him snoozing away. A conversation was the only thing he needed to fall asleep.

~~~

Basil was tossing and turning in his bed; the night went as well as it could. Christmas with Polly was not that bad, she had gifted him some gardening tools he desperately needed since his old ones were already too rusty to hold.

Everything was going alright, until he jumped into bed and realised that he was alone. Alone in his dark room, with the only sounds being his breath and the howling wind of the storm. Memories of better times lingered, and the fight that was his last interaction with someone six-feet under.

Sometimes, on some nights, he could still see him entering the room with something behind him. It was becoming rarer, and his mental health was improving due to the therapy sessions he had been taking. Polly was helping him too...

He turned again, his face looking a bit up at the flowers on the shelf. They were growing well, even if it was winter.

Before he closed his eyes, he could hear someone walking outside... It was probably Polly.

~~~

Aubrey was walking through the empty church. It was always open, even when nobody was there. The tired girl was holding a flower she stole from someone that was sadly not... a friend. She was not proud of that, but she wasn't good at anything else.

The air in the church floated around without a direction, filled only with the echoes of her footsteps. She didn’t mind the silence, it was quite comforting compared to what she had to endure around half an hour ago.

The Christmas at Kim’s place was not bad. She had enjoyed it far more than she thought she would, even thought it felt like she had destroyed the moment for them. She just sat silently, overwhelmed by the lights, food and noises of the entire place. Kim tried to start some conversations but...

The church windows were getting hit by tiny pieces of ice rocketing through the air, blocking the moonlight that would lighten up the place. Giving this place a more holy look, something that daylight couldn’t give.

The backdoor creaked open, as she stepped (with the flower tightly held in her hands) into the snow. The cold breeze hit her hard, a harsh reminder of the day that it was. In her inapt clothes, she traversed the incrementally growing pile of snow. Snow fell into her eyes, prompting her to close them. Something that was not a problem, as she remembered the way there.

Her feet were recorded by the layers of snow, as she slowly stepped through them. Aubrey opened her eyes only once she was certain that the grave in front of her, was Sunny's. Her intuition and memory were still intact, as she stared at a snow-covered grave. She kicked the white powder away, before putting the pot with the flower on Sunny’s grave.

“Merry Christmas Sunny…” she whispered, as a sob escaped her.

She couldn’t see what was written there, as it was too dark. Even if the words on his gravestone were visible, she didn’t want to read them.

The girl quickly left the graveyard - not wanting to feel the tears in her eyes and the wind swirling breaking the world's calmful silence.

The only thing looking at her were two very bright stars, as bright as the moon... smiling from above; as mindless as they were, they knew more than the mortal beings below.

Chapter Text

“This is your mission, if you fail this one… you won’t get another chance. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” He said reluctantly, not knowing what the mission was going to be.

<~~~>

Aubrey didn’t even need to open her eyes to know where she was. The bed was warm and very comfortable, something her house couldn’t offer anymore. She could smell the scent of food wafting throughout the house.

She finally opened her eyes, the room that Kim and her family gave to Aubrey revealing itself to her. It was still slightly weird to wake up here, even if she kind of liked it. She had no choice but to stay here unless she wanted to rot away like her mother.

Her room in Kim’s house was something she could only dream of as an innocent child. The slightly desaturated pink wallpaper was really close to making her eyes strained. The bed, near the far right corner of the room, was large and fluffy, she couldn’t remember the last time she was this comfortable. 

Her room also had a cage for Bun-Bun, a bookshelf she planned to fill with some comics or maybe actual books, some shelves, and a closet for her clothes.

She turned around her bed and put her feet on the white carpet that was covering most of the floor. Bun-bun was already looking at her from the cage, waiting for her food. Aubrey tried to smile at her pet, but she couldn’t. 

The girl walked towards the shelf next to the cage. Its contents were basically just food for the small, fluffy creature. She took a scoop of the bunny food and gave it to the hungry fur ball - her pet, Bun-Bun.

Aubrey closed the shelf and opened the door. She rushed down the stairs into the kitchen. Kim’s mother was cooking some breakfast; she really didn’t know what that smell was, as she focused on the fact that it was nice.

“Hey Sweetie,” the older woman said, looking at the moody girl in front of her. “Do you want to eat?”

Aubrey just looked at her through her long dishevelled pink hair and nodded no. It smelled so good yet she didn’t feel like she deserved it.

“Mhm…,” She continued, “That is fine, you can eat something later then.”

The woman went back to cooking. Aubrey felt hungry, very very hungry. The girl went back upstairs, still thinking about her decision to decline what would probably be a meal on par with whatever Hero would make.

She closed the door, making sure she didn’t slam it, and jumped back into her bed. Aubrey moved her pink hair to the side and stared at the ceiling. 

I don’t deserve any of this, she said to herself, waiting for something to happen. This wasn’t the first, second, tenth, or thirtieth time she had done this and stayed in bed like this for the whole day, thinking about how she could have saved the boy.

The image of his splattered body, and the blood slowly pooling, gathering around him, still shook her to this day. She didn’t want to think about it, she didn’t want to think about it, she didn’t want to think about it, she didn’t want to think about it, she-

“Sweetie~!” She heard Kim’s mom shout. “Can you go find Kim? She went somewhere early in the morning and she hasn’t come back yet~!”

Aubrey groaned, before getting out of her bed the second time.

~~~

Aubrey opened the door that led to the outside world; she was wearing a fluffy jacket and a hand-made winter hat, as well as tall leather shoes. Her whole look was quite comfortable, even if the fluffiness didn’t come close to real touch. 

The sun was brightly shining, yet the air was still freezing. The snowstorm that happened on Christmas Day didn’t make things easier, leaving some piles of snow blocking the walkways and turning them into an obstacle course.

She hadn’t really been outside for a long while as staying in the house was just the easiest thing to do, and the calmest place for her. I don’t deserve it, she told herself, walking by the snow. She passed some houses that were completely covered in snow. They looked nicer than usual but still normal as if nothing had changed with the boy’s death.

He died, and it is all your fault, her mind spoke loudly once again, disturbing her somewhat quiet and calm walk. The wind suddenly blew, it wasn’t strong but it was cold, very cold.

As Aubrey got to the crossroad, she saw her house, or at least where it once stood. It was completely broken, like her. She sighed, slightly angry at the fact that she would never live there again. Her mother shouldn’t have done that, it wasn’t necessary. She sometimes thought of this as a blessing, that warm autumn day.

Aubrey walked towards the park, the playground was completely covered in snow. She could see a couple of parents standing and looking at their children, who were having a massive snowball fight. She wished she could join in, but she was too old and too big.

The sounds of children laughing and screaming reminded her of the times they played in the snow as kids. Kel and her arguing, Basil and Sunny doing something at the back, watching them from afar or making more trouble, and Hero and Mari, talking to themselves, smiling and making sure that everyone was okay; having fun.

She missed those times, she missed her, she missed him.

As she stood still in the middle of the road, a snowball missed its target and hit her in the chest, waking her up from her trance. Shocked by the sudden attack, she took a step back, and a woman she had never seen before bumped into her. Aubrey fell down onto the snow, the cold enveloping her and overwhelming every single sense.

The woman stared at the girl she tripped, her teal eyes looked shaky and kind of scared. She had seen them somewhere, but she didn’t know where. The woman didn’t even say anything, before running off towards Othermart. 

Aubrey, annoyed at the stranger’s behaviour, scoffed and stood up. She cleaned her jacket and hair of the snow as much as she could before looking towards where the woman went... at least tried to. She still felt the freezing ice. The girl looked around; she didn’t see her anymore, as if she was a ghost.

~~~

Gino’s is very similar to how it was in the summer. It has a couple of additions, mainly the radio that was standing on the now-broken  Jukebox. Christmas lights were outside and inside of the pizzeria giving off a winter mood. 

They only lit up at night, as lighting them in the day didn’t make any sense. The previously pretty seats were bland with small cushions, and the tables were decorated with a couple of cheap Christmas ornaments from Fix-It. 

The radio just finished another holiday song Kim wanted to desperately forget and throw out of her head. The Christmas songs have always been a parasite, eating away at her attention and forcing her into humming them for another month.

She was sitting alone in the restaurant, as most people were playing outside or spending their time with their families, or both. She was just hungry for some pizza, especially after her short sleep. Aubrey’s nightmares didn’t help Kim’s already bad sleep schedule. Her tired eyes looked at the pizza before her, it was a spicy pepperoni, probably her favourite if she wanted to wake herself up without using coffee.

“And now another song!” The announcer on the radio said. Fucking finally, she thought, as her ears were already so aggravated by the bells and other Christmas instruments that she would have thrown the thing out of the window if one more song like that played. Instead, a somewhat calmer song began to play. It seemed to be more slow-paced, like a poem.

~On the road,~

The entry door of the restaurant suddenly opened. Kim didn’t even look at who entered, as she was too focused on the music, the pizza, and the overwhelming feeling of spice in her mouth. Her eyes had already started to water a bit.

Unexpectedly, the person walked to her table and sat next to her. The pink hair of the mysterious person revealed to Kim who the person was.

“Augby?” She said with her mouth full, looking at her depressed friend. 

She was completely covered in snow, and her hair had multiple chunks of ice stuck to it as if she got hit with ten to twenty snowballs just in that single place alone. She could see Aubrey shiver a bit as the snow melted and went into her clothes. Kim felt another wave of heat, as she regretted her decision to eat the pizza this fast.

Instead of talking, Aubrey used her fingers to show a house and then pointed at Kim. Her friend understood what the silent girl was trying to say, but it kind of annoyed her that she wasn’t talking that much. 

The change felt weird to her, but there wasn’t anything she could do. The one time she tried to make her talk normally, it resulted in crying and Aubrey disappearing from Faraway for almost 2 days. It wasn’t a fun experience.

“Okay, yeah.” Kim started saying before going for another slice of the pizza, “I kind of went to rob some candy from Othermart, boo hoo. It is a lot more difficult without Vance and less enjoyable.” Kim looked at her. Aubrey’s face didn’t show any emotion at all, it freaked her out a little. The silent girl pointed at the pizza before showing the house again.

“There is food at home as well? Awesome!” Kim shouted, “I will finish this pizza and go home then. Will you wait for me?” 

Aubrey nodded and shivered again, as more drops of ice-cold water went down, soaking into her clothes. She stood up and left the restaurant, leaving Kim and the radio alone. The employees weren’t even in the room, as they were probably chatting in the kitchen.

This is depressing, Kim thought to herself, while eating the slice, I can’t let her be like this. Kim looked at her friend, once happy and smiling. She didn’t even remember the last time she saw Aubrey like that. And it worried her that she was feeling worse than when they first met all those years ago. And then she had an idea how she could fix this problem…

A party!

~A void world.~

Chapter Text

“While we are going to be doing more important things…” He hoped it was going to be easy. Something simple.

<~~~>

Basil could smell the scent of his flowers faster than he actually woke up. He felt the fluffy texture of his bed, not wanting to get up. Basil’s sleep was quite terrible, he felt as if he didn’t sleep at all during the seven hours he laid in bed with his eyes closed and his brain resting. 

Maybe it was the fact that the sight of his best friend’s body, splattered on the ground, was the perfect nightmare fuel. Or maybe the winter climate and the “overwhelming” number of plants (according to Polly) made his sleep slightly worse. Basil guessed that it probably was the mixture of the two. He tried to force himself out of bed and start his day.

It took him a couple of attempts to get himself out of his warm paradise. He stared at his room, nothing changed about it.

He had already filled most of his room with them, and it still wasn’t enough. Besides, he felt more comfortable and less lonely with them here. It felt like they were blocking whatever negativity he had at night, watching him with more positive eyes.

Maybe I should try to get more, the flower boy thought.

He left his room and went into the bathroom. He sighed once he saw the mirror covered by some plastic. Not only did this mirror give him multiple nightmares and panic attacks, he had punched it a couple of times. Basil did it so many times, that Polly didn’t even want to repair it. 

I am a lost cause, aren’t I? The boy pondered, as he did his daily bathroom routine.

After leaving the bathroom, Basil smelled a different - warmer and cosier - smell. He heard some footsteps at the bottom, and sounds of water boiling. Basil, slightly confused by the fact that Polly was cooking so early in the morning, slowly went downstairs, making sure his feet were fully on each step of the stairs. He held the railing tightly, gripping it so hard that if he slid his hands down with such force, they would probably bleed. 

Once Basil finally got to the main room of his house, he noticed Polly working in the kitchen. The woman was someone Basil needed in his life, especially right now. Though he didn’t show it, he looked up to Polly and thought of her as his mother figure. The thought made him shiver a little, as it sounded slightly more weird in his head the more he thought about it.

“Good morning!” Polly said happily, smiling at the boy, “Did my cooking wake you up?” 

She quickly turned her head back to the pot and whatever was happening in the kitchen. Basil yawned and sat down next to the table. For a split second, he thought he saw Sunny and Kel sitting on the chairs. 

“Yeah, it did.” He kind of lied. 

Basil didn’t want to kill her enthusiasm so early on the day. It was a half-truth, so it couldn’t count as a lie in Basil’s head. 

Lies aren’t bad if they are used right, a voice rang in his brain, the voice of someone he wanted to forget, himself.

“Mhm,” Polly went along, still smiling, “I watered your flowers upstairs already, no need to do that today.” Basil was slightly stunned by this act, as it was his turn to do it today.

“Wasn’t it my turn to water the flowers today?” Basil asked, curious to know the answer.

“I am going home for a couple of days, I want to celebrate Christmas and New Years with my family, even if I am kind of late.” She responded, slightly losing her cheer at the end of her response. Basil felt a bit bad about it, but he didn’t show it. “I made you lunch and dinner already. It won’t last for the whole trip, but I left you some money so you can probably get some food from Gino’s.”

Polly went to Basil and gave him an envelope with some money in it. “Don’t buy any sandwiches! :P” was written on it in Polly’s cursive writing; some letters blended into the others a bit too much. Polly closed the pot with the lid and turned off the gas.

“Thank you.” Basil timidly said to Polly, his voice slightly happy “I hope you enjoy your trip.”

“I will, Basil.” Polly responded, leaving the kitchen and going towards the front door. Basil quickly stood up and followed her. 

“Wait! I forgot to mention! I also brought you some fresh bread and vegetables. You will have to make breakfast by yourself this time!” She added in before leaving. 

Basil nodded, shocked at how much preparation all of this must have taken.

“Bye Polly!” Basil said goodbye, trying to smile as he waved goodbye to the closest person he had right now. 

Polly responded with a genuine smile, before opening the door - a short burst of cold air rushed into the house because of this - and closing it once she was outside.

Basil stopped smiling the moment she was gone. He sighed and stared at the door in front of him. It took him a couple of minutes to return to the mortal world, as he felt numb. All of it felt sudden, too sudden, for him to handle.

And so, he curled up into a ball, lying down on the floor. Waiting for someone to come.

He quickly realised that no one would come... except his own thoughts and fears he hated so much...

He was lucky to have Polly... otherwise...

His eyes were already tired enough before this, and now not only he had bags under his eyes, but his eyes were also red.

With no plan, he decided to go back to the kitchen and make breakfast. His pick was simple, a sandwich with some lettuce and cheese. He didn’t like butter, as in his opinion, it took the taste away from the rest of the meal. He opened the fridge to see it completely full. Basil wasn’t surprised, but he would be lying if he said that he expected this.

The whole process of making a sandwich took him a minute, less than half the time it took him to actually get the ingredients out and pack them back in. It was a bit stale, but good enough.

Basil, still lost on what to do, went towards one of the shelves where he stored his basic equipment, and made sure that everything was in check. He discovered that one of the two watering can’s handles was broken. 

It was still usable, but it could be a big annoyance. And so, with nothing to do, he threw the watering can in the trash, took some money out of the envelope and put on his winter jacket.

Faraway was completely white, snow covering the whole place with many layers of snowflakes. He took a long breath and moments later, noticed the air looking like smoke. Basil tried to ignore the image that was burned in his memories.

The snow was melting slowly, but the amount of people walking on it would make its melting process much faster. He looked up at the sky; Basil couldn’t see any clouds, or the sun.

As he turned right, he saw Aubrey walking while hiding her face, as well as her pink hair, in the jacket. She looked worse than him, maybe because he was better at hiding it. The girl didn’t see him, as her head was focused on the snowy concrete pavement.

It was worrying, but it is not like he could help. 

She would die, if I tried, He thought, continuing his trip to the store; as if he hadn’t seen his old friend and bully again.

Basil could feel a slight headache, it wasn’t anything strong, but slightly more annoying than he wished it would be. He didn’t want to think about it, about anything except the shears watering can.

~Empty, but full,~

Kim just left Gino’s, she finished the pizza pretty quickly after her amazing idea popped into her head. Her eyes were slightly watering, and it didn’t really help that everything else was really cold. She could feel her tears slightly freezing and her mouth completely losing it. The girl groaned and wiped her eyes.

As Kim was about to go to Fix-It, she saw Basil. The flower boy she and her friends bullied was running and looking around. Despite doing that, it looked like he didn’t see anything.

This was rapidly confirmed by the fact that Basil was rushing straight at Kim, who just stared at him, confused. She stood in place just to see if the boy would actually bump into her.

His steps got faster, and he himself got closer and closer and-

“AH SORRY!” He suddenly shouted, throwing Kim further than if he had just bumped into her. “I- I- didn’t see- e- you.”

Kim looked at him, he was terrified. His body was slightly shaking, his eyes looking down and desperately trying to not show that he was scared of her. What the fuck did we do to him? Kim thought. This fact quickly glossed over her head, as her mind was mostly focused on Aubrey, not on the things that got them here.

He kind of reminded her of Aubrey, especially during her recent panic attacks. 

Wait! They were friends! Right?! Kim thought, this one wasn’t as bright as the party, but it somehow clicked. If anyone could help her, maybe it could be him!

Kim took a step back in her thought process. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. She knew that confrontation was probably the best way to solve a problem, but this was far deeper than just a small bickering between friends. At least it seemed like it.

She hadn’t thought about this, and Kim didn’t want to go to his house just to give him an invite. The girl sighed, still worrying that this might backfire.

“You are friends with Aubrey, right?” Kim asked, Basil nodded. “Wanna help me set up a party for her?”

Basil stared at her, a bit confused. He thought for a bit before actually answering.

“Will I- I- have t- to atte- tend?” the blonde-haired boy asked in his quivering voice. The question threw Kim off, as she didn’t even think about the fact that he could simply not attend the party.

“If you don’t want to go that much,” Kim responded, Basil nodded again - this time with a bit of hesitation. Kim turned around and went towards Fix-It, as Basil followed her.

~Reality will pull~

The two entered Fix-It. The inside of the shop wasn’t as cold as outside, but it was still freezing. The shelves weren’t in complete disarray, as there were a couple of people in the shop. The cashier was eating a popsicle, staring at everyone who was shopping. 

There were a lot more Christmas lights around the place, the same ones that were in Gino’s. Kim could also spot that there were Christmas trees at the back of the store.

Kim instantly started to walk around the shop, looking for something that would be helpful. Basil closed the door behind them and followed her, knowing immediately where the watering can was as he had already memorised the layout.

“Lookin’ for something to help?” Kim asked, confused as she realised that there was nothing of value.

Basil didn’t answer, as he walked away towards the shelf with watering cans. Kim, not really understanding how they could be useful for the party, looked through every single shelf, still trying to find something that could help her. 

First, she took one of the hammers and a couple of screws. They wouldn’t have many ideas for why it could be helpful, but if they wanted to fix up or connect tables, it would be perfect.

The second thing though, excited her a lot more. Balloons and a balloon pump. She instantly grabbed three packages, slightly giddy at the thought of playing with them as she did before… and blowing them up.

The girl was about to go to the cashier, but she was stopped by the sound of loud but quick breaths. Kim slowly ran towards the back and saw Basil against the wall holding a watering can. He was clearly not having a good time. From the corner of her eye she could see a woman she had never seen before, running out of the shop.

Kim approached Basil, who had his eyes closed, and was muttering something under his breath. In the entire chaos, she felt inclined to stop the preparations, and help him before someone called the hospital.

As she sat down next to him, as quietly as possible so that she wouldn’t overwhelm him, she tried to listen to what he was muttering . It was slightly immoral, but her curiosity got the best of her. Either way, it didn’t work, as Basil was not only stuttering but also crying, making it impossible to decipher anything he was trying to say.

“Basil,” Kim spoke with the most calming voice she could, “Follow my breathing, everything is going to be okay.” Basil didn’t give any sign to Kim. Kim thought, surprised she is inclined to help him and not leave him here.

Kim started breathing slowly and steadily, as she counted. Basil’s crying stopped, his mumbling beginning to get rarer and rarer. She could hear that he was trying to mimic her breathing. Kim looked around for the first time since she sat down next to the boy, everyone was looking at her. She blushed a little, as this situation was slightly too embarrassing for the girl.

When she looked back at the flower boy, he still had his eyes closed, but his breathing was back to normal. Kim instantly stood up and took his watering can, wanting to get out of this place as fast as she possibly could.

Kim bought everything (even Basil’s watering can) and waited outside Fix-It. The cold air that floated outside hit her again, giving her small goosebumps. It didn’t take long for him to arrive, slightly shocked that she was waiting for him. He held another watering can in his hand.

“O- oh.” Basil said, looking at the watering can he was holding mere minutes ago, in Kim’s bag. 

Shockingly, he didn’t take it out of the bag, instead he decided the much creepier and unsettling option of just staring at it like a zombie.

“You sure we needed two?” Kim asked, quite confused. It only clicked right then and there that the watering cans may in fact not be something for the party.

And so she waited for a while, so that the flower nerd could answer, or do anything…

“I am going home so…” Saying this without it being awkward was as bad as what had happened at Fix-It moments ago, “Cya?”

Somewhat not certain of her decision, she turned around and went back home, trying not to think of how embarrassing this was.

Basil didn’t really mind the fact that she left. 

She didn’t beat me up this time, the boy thought, going towards his home.

The way home was quite boring. The snow was still the same, the children still playing with snowballs and making snowmen in the park. Their parents continued to talk to each other, gossiping and laughing at what their kids were doing. Basil ignored them, he never had family after all. 

Is Polly family? Basil wondered, trying to not think of Sunny and Mari. He had to continue thinking, or else...

He kept looking down at the ground, similar to what Aubrey was doing beforehand. Basil didn’t want more attention today, the time he spent with Kim was already too exhausting.

And it could have easily been the end of Basil's daily encounter with one of his biggest bullies. He could have simply forgotten about the past and walked back home. But his stroll back home was cut short when all of a sudden, a figure caught his eye. 

The flower enthusiast stopped to stare at the person. The person was someone he had never seen, and he didn’t look like he was from Faraway. He was tall, his long arms and legs were probably adding to that. He had short brown hair, which was slightly ruffled. 

The person was wearing some kind of weird silver suit, the suit didn’t look comfortable, yet the stranger wasn’t even making any sounds. The stranger had a belt of different tools that looked like they were from Spaceboy or a world similar to that. 

All of them were white, with dark blue contrasting the standard colour. There was one thing that felt like the odd one out, a leather pouch.

Basil closed his eyes repeatedly, the person didn’t disappear. He wanted to go home, but the aura and weirdness of this cosplayer (if he was that), made him want to see where he was going.

The flower boy looked around, slightly anxious that he might be caught spying, and cautiously walked towards the mysterious newcomer. The one wearing the white suit casually strolled around, and turned left into the street Basil couldn’t see.

He approached the crossing - still able to hear the footsteps of the mysterious man - and carefully peaked his head around the corner, to see that the person was… gone. Basil ran around the street, looking through the gaps between the houses. There was no trace of such a person ever walking here, except the footsteps in the snow. He noticed them quite quickly, but sadly, they cut off in the middle of the street.

As the boy walked back home, he came to the realisation that at least now he had a personal mission for the next couple of days.

Better than his thoughts after all.

Chapter Text

“...You will be in a sister dimension. Three of the four main Rifts were somehow opened and none of them have been closed…”

<~~~>

And he didn’t even repay me! Kim thought, walking with the shopping bag back home. Her frustrations with the flower boy were growing, even more than before. Not only did she help him, but she bought him something even if she didn’t need to. 

At least I have a watering can now, She continued her train of thoughts, trying to not get too moody and angry before she came back. Could it be used as a weapon?

Kim didn’t have to come back home, but the shopping bag was a giant nuisance. She noticed that the playground was much emptier. There were still children playing, just not as many as before.

She looked at the sun, it looked like it would set in a few hours, about four. Kim grunted and continued her short journey home. The girl hated short days, even if they got longer after Christmas. 

Maybe that is why she enjoyed summer. It wasn’t that she hated snow, but the green grass, warm water and going to the beach was far more fun than snowballs.

She turned right, going towards her house. This day was not that bad; but Kim wished it could have gone better. Maybe if she didn’t go with him... She looked in the bag again, and saw the bags of balloons she bought.

At least I have baloons, Kim shrugged. She opened the door, a small wave of heat hitting her. She quickly went inside and closed the entrance behind her.

“I am home!” She shouted, trying to not be too loud. She sprinted up and went into her room.

Kim’s room wasn’t as cosy and fluffy as Aubrey’s room. You could say that the main theme of this room was blue. Her bed was slightly bigger than Aubrey’s, the blankets that were on it matching the wallpaper. She had a giant desk (twice as big as the one at school), two different lamps, a night table, a bookshelf and her closet.

She put the bag on her bed and unpacked it. Before sorting out everything she bought, which wasn’t a lot, she took one of her smaller backpacks out of the closet and threw it onto the bed as well. Kim hoped it was empty. The girl sat a lot more quietly than everything else she had done after entering her house. 

First, Kim took out the watering can, placing it on the side of her desk. After that, she put the balloons and the plastic shopping bag in the backpack. The girl closed the backpack straight after, putting it on and leaving her room.

She tried to do all of it before her parents would realise she is here. Yes, she shouted that she is home, but it doesn’t mean Kim needed to stay home and listen to her parents. Sometimes, she wished she could forget about them, about him… Vance…

Kim shook her head, emptying her thoughts. The girl went to Aubrey’s room, as she had a question. The door was slightly open; open enough for Kim to see Aubrey lying on her bed. She kind of hated when she saw Aubrey like that, it looked like she was a corpse, dead; just without any blood anywhere. 

Kim could hear Bun-Bun chewing on something in her cage, before running around and making even more noise. Kim waited till the bunny calmed down a bit.

“Hey, Aubs,” Kim said, still not in the room, not sure if she could enter. She could see the girl in bed staring towards the door. Kim opened her mouth, about to ask Aubrey about who she should invite from the nerds. Luckily, she realised the flaw with that idea, and so she quickly thought of another question. 

“Which nerds would- you- like to see soon?” Was the question that came out of her mouth.

Oh my fucking god, this is worse than with that flower boy, Kim thought, frustrated about herself, I have to plan this stuff more next time.

“Kel,” Aubrey whispered, she could barely hear her voice. It sounded wrong to hear her like this, all of this was wrong. There was a long pause, but Kim could see the living corpse try to say something more. 

“Hero too,” Aubrey continued. After all of that effort she turned around, not willing to look at Kim anymore.

Kim sighed, her brain going into overload as she realised that she had invited Basil; the girl really hoped that this fact wouldn’t backfire. Kim closed the door and ran downstairs. Still in her coat, she left the house and ran towards the crossroads.

~Flying, and stale,~

“Hero, why can’t you make dinner already?” Kel asked, already hungry. 

Their house was empty, their parents and Sally went for a New Years trip, leaving the boys alone at home. 

It was mainly Hero who didn’t want to go fly somewhere; he was already tired enough of college. Kel stayed home to make sure that Hero stays and rests, and that he gets to goof around more.

“Maybe because we ate lunch an hour ago?!” Hero responded, not surprised by his brother’s constant hunger. 

They were sitting in the living room, playing some cards. Both of them already had their morning walk, and both of them didn’t want to spend more time in the cold again.

The day started with two breakfasts, then washing and cleaning the house (mainly Hero), after that they played one of Kel’s video games for a short while. 

The game ended with Hero tragically losing to Kel. An hour after that, Hero cooked lunch and now they were playing cards. The two felt like they should find something more interesting than this, and as brothers, they procrastinated.

“I am hungry,” Kel stated, looking at his cards, “And after New Years you’ll be gone for another half a year so I won’t be able to even taste food half as good as yours!”

“Kel, can you please continue the game?” Hero asked, wanting to win the game as he already knew what he was going to do. Kel, instead of doing what was expected by his older brother, looked to the side and picked up a bottle of Orange Joe.

“Can you please stop drinking that stuff?” Hero requested as kindly as he could.

“Why? It is still as tasty as ever!” Kel responded with a question, uncapping the glass bottle.

“Kel, it’s expired.” Hero mentioned; he could feel his sanity decreasing.

“I am hungry,” Kel said, in the same tone as moments ago, “If you make me some food I won’t drink it.”

Hero put his cards on the table (they were still covered) and went into the kitchen. Kel grinned a little, following his brother and sitting down next to the table. He could still remember the amount of food that was on it during Christmas. With the food, came the memories.

The memory of Sunny’s mother flew into his head, how tired and exhausted she looked. Her eyes red from crying, her clothes covered by the snow. She didn’t look like a mother anymore, a shadow of someone who once cared, who once had everything they loved.

The memory of Hero puking, leaving the table and having panic attacks. Crying over the death of Sunny in the bathroom. He was more mature than him, yet Kel was able to calm him down and help him. It scared him to see his brother like that.

He looked over to him to see him spaced out… that worried him too.

“Kel?” Hero asked, bringing Kel back to reality, “Earth to Kel,” Hero waved his hand, smiling. Kel smiled as well, slightly giggling.

“What were you thinking about? You don’t space out like that.” Hero asked, still cooking a meal for his brother. Now I do, Kel thought, surprised that his brother hasn’t noticed that fact yet.

“Just, you know,” Kel responded, trying to omit the answer. He knew how Hero would react to their names. “About Orange Joe?” Kel noticed the slight confusion on Hero’s face.

Luckily for Kel, the two could hear a very loud knocking on their front door. Kel stood up from his chair, unlocked the door, and opened it. The boy was confused when he saw that in front of him stood Kim. She was wearing a fluffy winter jacket, and a backpack.

Kim walked into the house, slightly shivering. She closed the door behind her and gave a nervous smile. Kel looked at her confused, then stared at his brother. Hero was kind of stunned.

Why the hell is she here again…, Kel thought, turning his attention towards the bottle of Orange Joe he had opened.

“Hi?!” Kim tried to start a conversation, ignoring Kel’s drinking habit. Hero opened his mouth, and closed it. For some reason he didn’t know what to say. They waited long enough for Kel to grab the bottle and get back to them.

“Why did you come here Kim?” Kel asked bluntly, “The last time you came here we had to help Aubrey.”

“Yeah, I kind of want you guys to do that again?” Kim responded, not sure what she got herself into.

“What do you mean by that?” Hero questioned, a slight reluctance in his voice accompanied by a tinge of worry.

“I am organising a party for Aubrey,” She said, the two brothers looked at each other confused, “Just to lift her mood up a bit” she added in. 

Kel was about to ask a question, and Hero didn’t hesitate to close his mouth before he could actually ask it. The older brother almost spilled the orange poison Kel was drinking. Kim wanted to be confused by this, but she understood it too quickly for her to actually be perplexed.

“Yeah, we can come. When and where are you organising it?” Hero answered, putting Kel’s open drink on the table, and keeping his question about Orange Joe out of Kim’s mind. 

Kel was slightly surprised at his brother’s strength.

Kim panicked inside, as she hadn’t actually thought of when it was going to happen. I have forced myself into a corner again, she huffed angrily, I don’t like the fact that this is becoming a trend. She noticed her throat gulp.

“It will be happening at Gino’s, after sunset, in 2 days.” She stammered out an answer, uncertain if it would work. 

2 DAYS?! She screamed with her mouth closed.

“We will be there then!” Hero assured her. Kim nodded and quickly left the house, slamming their front door upon leaving. Hero stopped tightly gripping his brother.

“What the hell was that?” Kel asked, frustrated and shocked. “When did you get so strong?”

“When did you get so weak?” Hero laughed, and grinned, as the two brothers returned to the kitchen, as if nothing had happened. 

They went to their positions before Kim came, Kel sitting and Hero cooking. There was a bit of silence, and ambiance of Hero’s work, but Kel suddenly broke it.

“I am happy that Aubrey has Kim,” Kel muttered in a weirdly mature voice, as if he woke up from one of his trances.

“Hm?” Hero gave off a short sound, just to tell Kel that he was listening to him.

“We haven’t really been in touch with them…” Kel reminded them both of what they hadn’t been doing, “Aubrey and Basil,”

“Right…” Hero responded to Kel, agreeing but thinking more about the party Kim was organising. “Do you think we should try to see them?”

“Yeah… after you make me food,” Kel grinned, before taking another long sip of the orange drink.

Hero didn’t really want to move from the couch, thinking about what they could do for the next couple of days. He looked around the room, before noticing the large hole in the wall next to the door.

“We could also try to fix this up,” he said as he pointed at it. Kel looked at it and rolled his eyes.

“Fine…” He put the bottle of Orange Joe on the table and stood up, “I will make some food myself… We can go do that tomorrow…”

~~~

That was awful, that was awful, that was awful, Kim repeated in her mind, believing them and being annoyed at how panicky she had become in the last few weeks. 

She couldn’t even blame that on the stressed flower boy!

She looked at the sun, which was still up above, even if the day was quite short, Kim didn’t have enough energy to continue it. Her eyes and legs were exhausted, her brain felt as if it was running on half a brain cell. She noticed that the snow began to melt, making her slightly sad.

Maybe I could’ve played in the snow, she thought, looking down at the ground below her. 

The snow on the walkway wasn’t actually that interesting, not as weird as the footsteps in it. The very flat footsteps didn’t look like they were made by human shoes, or by animals.

Kim thought about it for a bit, before brushing it off and forgetting about it in mere seconds. Her thoughts wandered to candy once again.

Sadly, her dream could not be realised… without Vance… and the ban she got from entering Othermart.

~~~

Mikhael was walking towards Fix-It. The sunset of the snowy day was slowly coming to an end. His winter clothes were not the best, as they weren’t made for that amount of snow, but he had to pick up a special package.

For the past months - mostly - everything has been going right for him. He finally fought back against his parents and the expectations of his peers, and was now doing something he loved to do. Art.

More specifically, he was interested in graffiti art and art that uses paint cans as their main tool. Sadly, getting them was somewhat of a struggle, and they were far from the least expensive thing to buy. Especially since the shipping costs were quite high.

Alas, his hobby also forced him to work at Fix-It sometimes… or that lady in Othermart. He has come to hate wasps and flies since he took that job offer. He shivered a little, not knowing if it was the thought of wasps or the piercing cold.

Faraway at night was quite calm. There were no children running around and shouting, the pavements were quite empty, and the roads were devoid of any drivers. Lights coming off of the stars above were shining upon the planet, taking some weight off of the moon and its reflecting surface.

Fix-It would normally be closing in an hour, Mikhael always came for his package at night so that no one could stop him from hiding it in his room. He had to make sure everyone was sleeping. He couldn’t risk getting found by his parents or by his siblings.

He could obviously try to hide it somewhere else, but last time he did the cans were already used up a bit by none other than Angel himself. Mikhael remembered getting quite mad at him that day, it wasn’t their brightest moment for sure.

As Mikhael was already next to Othermart, he heard sounds of keys jingling around and a door getting locked in front of him. A silhouette of someone was visible in the darkness. The boy realised who that was and panicked a little.

“HEY?!” He shouted, speeding up his walk so that he could catch up to the guy before. “Why are you closing shop so quickly?”

“Tough day kid,” The cashier of Fix-It said, “Had to deal with a panicked kid and it wasn’t too pleasant,”

“Did my package arrive?” He asked, not really wanting to stay in the cold dust too much.

“Mhm,” The man confirmed and began turning the key the other way, unlocking the door. “Just be quick… I wanna go to sleep soon.”

Mikhael nodded and with a smile on his face, entered the dark building.

~Bright colours, but pale.~

The moon was looking at Faraway, reflecting the Sun’s light onto Earth and the towns on it. There were no clouds flying through the endless skies, no bodies of steam gathering. Snow that had been played with, stopped to melt during this period of the full twenty-four hours.

Nocturnal animals began getting out of their cover, finally ready for their time. Small gusts of wind were making everything colder during the night, reminding anyone who was willing to go outside, that it was still winter.

Cris was one of these people; she had a completely broken sleep schedule because of her midnight walks, but it didn’t stop her. Her parents tried to make sure that she wouldn’t get sick and that she couldn’t go outside during the night. It was frustrating as she liked the cold.

Cris liked the night, it was colder than day, and more secretive, more free in a way. She thought of it as a sea covering the world. Cold like water, with freedom of swimming in it in multiple directions. 

It was a strange comparison, some would call her crazy, others dumb. She had never gotten sick because of this, and she probably never would.

Though everything looked slightly creepier, that was one thing she didn’t enjoy. Yes, there was light coming from buildings, more than usual as many of the Christmas lights were shining at night, but the playground being empty and barely visible wasn’t something she liked to see. That is why she ignored it.

Being alone during the night had its benefits, but it also had negatives. One of these things - that are in both of these strangely defined categories - is the idea of well, not having anyone to help you or assure you if something happens. It was kind of scary thought, that one day she might not come back here.

This rule, of being alone, was broken in an instant. She saw someone, roughly the same age, walking down the street towards the playground, which she was now close to. Slightly giddy about meeting someone during the night, Cris stayed in the same place. The target got closer and closer and-,

“Basil?!” Cris asked, once the boy saw her, he jumped slightly, “What are you doing here?” Cris was perplexed by this fact, maybe even more when he looked like he was about to kill Aubrey, with all of the equipment making sounds as he moved.

“I- I cou- u- uld ask you- u the same question,” Basil muttered, uncertain of himself, as always. Even if he felt a bit better during the night.

Cris was about to respond, still shocked that she was talking to Basil, especially this close to midnight. Their silhouettes had barely any details, Basil’s bright eyes looking at her, making her sure that it was actually him. Suddenly, a very bright light towered over the town. 

The ground shook a little, making both of them almost lose balance. Cris’ and Basil’s eyes were blinded for a second before they turned around to see that the moonlight was now somehow stronger. The night was now looking like a very cloudy day.

No longer silhouettes, the two, as if on cue, saw a large white beam of light shoot out from very close to them. The duo didn’t even say anything to themselves, unanimously deciding to see where it came from.

Cris and Basil ran through the snow, Cris easily winning the race; that fact didn’t quite help her with what she planned to do that night. Cris looked at the pond; a large beam of light - the size of the pond - was shooting up into the sky. The ground around them was slightly more grey and black, and the snow around the lake wasn’t melting as fast as if it would in normal sunlight.

“What is this?” Basil asked, huffing, puffing and holding his knees. His head staring at what seemed like magic.

“...” Cris didn’t respond, trying to understand and puzzle everything together. All of this was like a giant hit into her brain, as if she drank 3 coffees at the same time and went to swim in a cold pool. 

Basil moved onto the pier, looking at the beam itself. Its shine was not a problem, as somehow it didn’t blind him, as if the light was fake.

His face was illuminated by the fake white light, its shadows somehow not working properly. The light of the magical beam began to leak colours. The hue was different at different parts of the laser, as if something was unstable, breaching. Black was the most prominent colour of that laser, surrounding all the other colours that flowed through the beam.

Cris moved forward, next to Basil. In awe of what was happening. The snow around the pond was now completely melted, even though the ice covering the lake wasn’t affected.

Before any of them could do anything more with this beam, it suddenly stopped. The ones who were awake at midnight looked at each other, scared, uneasy.

“You saw it?” Basil asked, his voice somehow not stuttering from what had happened. “It was real, this is real, right?”

“I-“ Cris tried to say something, before seeing Basil punching himself. She didn’t need to stop him, as he stopped his rodeo quite quickly. She noticed that the snow around the lake was still there. 

The ice covering the water of the lake was not. The two didn’t even notice that they were back to being silhouettes, their eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness around them.

Basil sat down on the edge of the pier, swinging his legs back and forth, focusing on the moon above. Cris, perplexed and puzzled by this midnight, sat next to him. They both knew something was happening, and they didn’t know what.

Chapter Text

“...Your task will be to find the final Rift before this individual does…” Seems okay right now.

<~~~>

Basil couldn’t sleep. The image of the light beam shattering the sky above them, turning night into day, was frightening yet intriguing. He rolled in his bed again, looking out of the window, trying to see if the thing would come back.

It didn’t, he waited hours and hours. The sky remained the same, the moon slowly falling down. The animals that thrived at night were falling asleep, as the sun rose up. The snow began to melt again, slowly turning to its liquid form.

Basil was tired, his eyes almost closed, and his mind still thinking about that one moment. It wasn’t natural, he was sure about that; similar to that mysterious person.

Are they connected? Basil pondered, Maybe he is the one doing that!  

Excited, he jumped out of the bed with all of his energy (which was not a lot), and went downstairs, not thinking about his fears. 

He quickly made himself some cereal - eating it with cold milk taken straight from the fridge - and grabbed his gardenbelt. Multiple things were already tied to it, some of them could seem quite helpful.

After that, he put on the same jacket as yesterday, grabbed the key that was on the stool next to the door, left his house and locked the door. Hiding the key inside of his jacket, he smiled for a second, before he realised the cold breeze was not to be forgotten about. The sky was covered by small clouds, making the day slightly colder than the ones before. 

The wind felt warmer, even if it was still cold. The snow was clearly melting, the task of finding footsteps would be proven harder today, and maybe impossible tomorrow. It motivated Basil even more, sprinting away from his past reality, to go and find the mysterious human walking these ways.

He checked the secret hideout first. The path was slightly slippery, but enough to make him cautious. As per usual, the playground was full of children, their parents were looking over them. For the past couple of months, Faraway was growing, even if it was kind of slow, the amount of cars combined with the fact that more people seemed to be roaming the streets was a neat surprise. It still felt completely frozen in time.

Dashing through the snowball fight, Basil was able to reach the lake with barely any snow on his jacket and clothes. The place was empty, the air around it kind of eerie. There was something unsettling about this place… was this him or the lake? 

The boy stared at the pond, the ice still looking the same as yesterday. The monument in the middle had small icicles on it, the water from them was dripping onto the pond below.

The flower boy inspected the edges of the lake, looking for anything in the snow that would be unusual. He found nothing like that. The inspection wasn’t that long, as he had only checked the ground. No signs of footsteps…

Slightly sad at the fact that he had found nothing; Basil sighed and walked out of the secret spot. Feeling the branches move around him, forcing him to slowly dodge them, brought him back some memories he instantly wanted to forget. He couldn’t remember, not now.

~Cracks, we call dreams,~

If Aubrey had the choice to stay in the house today; she would. 

Sadly, her newest mother figure forced her out because she “needed fresh air” and couldn’t stay in bed her entire life. It wasn’t even the fact that she had to go out that annoyed her, it was the cold breeze and grey sky that didn’t brighten her day like the sun. It was the lifeless world around her. 

Death, as a three month season.

Her jacket was still a little bit wet from the last time she had gone outside. She glanced behind her to see that the front door of Kim’s house was still closed. The woman was not looking at her, and she wouldn’t probably let her in again for a while. The road next to her was empty. A small pile of snow was visible from this distance.

She huffed, a small cloud forming and dissipating quickly after her long breath,and slowly continued her forced walk. The pavement was still a bit icy, if not slippery at multiple places. As a child - or maybe even months ago - she would have happily slid on it and ran to her destination. To her friends…? 

She was not that child anymore. Not anymore.

As she continued to walk around the same looking houses of Faraway, she realised that there was no destination in her mind yet; the mess inside of there was one she didn’t want to remember. She could try to find Kim, or go to Gino’s, or both. She couldn’t sit on the benches or in front of the lake as the wooden structure was probably wetter than the grass.

She kicked the little snow pile she saw moments ago, and found herself in a very surprising situation. The pile of snow turned out to be ice covered by snow, making her leg not only hit it, but also slide across it. She lost her balance and almost fell down onto the ground.

Luck was somehow on her side today, as she didn’t fall to the ground, staying upright on the concrete walkway once more. Scared, and her heart beating a lot faster than before, Aubrey decided that maybe she could stare at the houses in the meantime. Kim was probably somewhere random, and she would find her one day.

The sun was still going up, and time was not ticking as fast as it was during the summer… that summer.

No she couldn’t remember that.

Some of the houses already had their Christmas lights off or taken off. The same bland houses also had filled up garbage cans outside of their backyard, some of them showing their dead Christmas tree publically. Luckily, she couldn’t focus on the smell as the cold wind took it away before it cloud fly to her.

After a couple minutes of walking, she decided to go straight to Gino’s. Walking around the neighbourhood just reminded her that nothing has changed. Only she and her friends that…

Did they leave her again?

Probably, maybe. She was the one closing herself inside. She didn’t remember when was the last time she spoke to Angel, Mikhael, Charlene, Hero, Kel or Basil. She missed them, a lot more than she would like to remember, but the girl knew that she would only hurt them more. 

As much as she hurt Sunny.

A single tear dropped from her eye. Once it landed on the floor, it quickly froze. Her head down, she couldn’t see the fragments of her icy cry. The quiet streets of Faraway didn’t phase her, even if it made her a little uneasy. The lack of any children was somewhat weird, but then again it was still quite early.

Too early.

“Hey Aubrey,” She heard a familiar voice say in front of her. She looked up to see Hero, standing with two plastic bags of groceries in his arms. She opened her eyes wide, feeling her heartbeat quicken.

How didn’t I see him…? Aubrey thought, confused and stepping back.

“H- hi,” She stuttered and felt sweat rolling down her arms already. 

She wasn’t ready, she wasn’t ready, she wasn’t ready.

They were still a fair bit away from Gino’s, making a quick escape quite impossible. 

“You okay?” He asked her, feeling the weight of two filled up plastic bags making him sweat a little.

Aubrey didn’t answer, she just stared into the distance, not even reacting to his words. Her mind was panicking, seeing him sparked a flame that she wanted to keep away. She didn’t want to see him, why was he here even… where was Kel? What happened to him? Is he alive? Is Basil here?

“Earth to Aubrey?” Hero asked, not really sure what to do.

“Yeah, sorry,” She apologised, her heart racing faster than any cars around them. Trying to back away from these thoughts.

“Kel wanted to mee-”

“Can I go?” She gulped, and looked down, trying not to manipulate him with her incoming tears.

“...” He stood there, before walking around her and leaving,

“We’ll see you soon,” Hero said before disappearing, not letting the kid go herself. He was as confused as her.

The gap between them widened again, the bridge somehow continuing to flame up in these cold conditions. She didn’t look at him, she did not look back to see where he was headed even if she knew. She wanted to forget this and…

She wasn’t even hungry anymore. Her mess of emotions and contradicting thoughts fed her enough. It frustrated her, as she couldn’t force herself to eat a pizza alone. She still walked to the local pizzeria, trying to potentially find someone she could hang out with.

Gino’s was empty, it was too early. Of course.

Aubrey didn’t even have money to buy anything from the restaurant. She never did, only leeching off of her friends and close ones. Like always.

She rolled her eyes and huffed, angry and exhausted. Looking back at the walkway, it was completely empty. 

Henry was gone.

Was he ever here?

The girl walked, slowly but surely, towards wherever her legs would take her. Out of nowhere, she could hear fast footsteps approach her. Before she was able to look and move away, a woman bumped into her.

Shocked, and stunned, Aubrey landed almost at the same spot; thrown to the side by the same person in the same way. She took a deep breath, and decided to go somewhere calmer than here.

Maybe her thoughts would let her live this time…

~~~

Kim was sitting on her swivel chair, spinning around and having the time of her life. She honestly forgot what she was doing, the activity of spinning making whatever she focused on was far less boring.

The fun was cut short when she started to feel dizzy. Kim slowly waited for it to slow down before she actually made her decision to grab the desk and stop herself. If she hadn’t done that, she would have probably had lots to clean up.

She looked at the desk and saw colourful red paper. Her stomach slightly more chaotic than before, she tried to step away from the chair . Kim wasn’t really exhausted from the spinning, at least not mainly; but that didn’t change the fact that she quickly had to jump back. She didn’t sleep well. Not only did she sleep very late at night, some weird light flashed at her and woke her up at midnight. 

Kim didn’t know if she was hallucinating, but everyone else seemed to sleep fine and hadn’t even known something like that happened. Maybe she just was a very light sleeper.

The girl looked at the desk again. The red colourful paper was empty, there was nothing on it. She also saw that there were a couple of pens next to it. 

Was I making invitations? She wondered what her sleepy self was doing before she actually woke up.

Kim was about to start writing something, when she realised once again that her planning skills had been thrown out of the window a long time ago. She hoped that they maybe could return once school comes back to hurt her once again. 

Maybe that is why I am so bad at time management, Kim pondered, almost losing track of what she was doing again.

I don’t have to make invitations, Kim said to herself, standing up from her chair while accidentally pushing it back into her closet. 

Why was I making invitations as if this was some kindergarten party? Am I seriously this sleepy? The girl thought about it, as she went downstairs and began eating her breakfast.

~They are in beams.~

Basil was already getting bored, he hadn’t found any footsteps next to the town square, or the streets that were at the opposite end of it. He kept looking down at the half snowy pavement, trying to spot anything that didn’t look like cats, or human shoes.

Boredom meant pain. He wanted to avoid it so much. He looked around, trying to hyperfocus on something that could distract him from the SUN floating in the sky, lucky to still be hanging up there. He hated it, it felt so wrong.

Did it even feel? Where was he? Why was he? Was this person even…

And then, he could focus once again, right before he was about to move on to the other side, he saw a single footstep that resembled the ones of the weird guy, or so it seemed. His excitement flooded his body, as he followed the trail. Quickly forgetting about the lingering boredom waiting for him.

He passed a couple of houses, cars and people - some of which were looking at him. He didn’t want to look at them back, especially at the ones with one eye. The flower boy quickly got to the end of the street, the footsteps changing direction towards the empty space between houses and their gardens.

Basil wanted to run, the icy walkways and weird mounds slowing him down, but he heard some strange whoosh sound, something that wasn’t a bird, or any natural phenomena he knew.

He cautiously and slowly stepped towards the gap between the two streets, and houses. Basil kept his walk slow and steady, he didn’t even want to make a vibration or two. One of his hands had to be clinging onto the gardening belt of tools, so that they didn’t make a loud metallic cling.

Once he got to the gap, the boy slowly turned his head to see what he had been looking for. The mystery person was looking through some kind of weird colourful thing in the wall. 

The weird thing seemed to be moving, but staying in this one single position. The person was holding something similar to a gun. It was shining with bright purple and orange lights embroidered onto it.

The person sighed, and shot at the wall multiple times in a vertical pattern, the whoosh sounds stacking and getting louder. The shots themselves didn’t really sound like gunshots, more like electricity suddenly touching a metallic object, even if that wasn’t the perfect representation of what he was hearing. It was completely alien to anything he had heard before, as if his ears were not made for these sounds.

The person walked through the hole he made in the wall.  Basil, worried about the strangeness of the entire situation, didn’t want to risk coming even close to it. What would the person do if he had noticed that someone saw him and followed this much behind him? Then, the spiral representation of an image (or whatever else it was) began to shrink.

Basil, knowing that he might not be so close to seeing this person again, rushed and looked through the two dimensional storm. He could see the weird person covering the other side, he could he seemed to be talking to someone that was in front of him. There seemed to be other people on the other side as well, no one noticing him.

The other side looked more techy and advanced, the floor seemed metallic, the lights similar to the gun, their room weirdly crowded, with windows that were going towards straight into darkness. There was a slight red glow from the side of one of the windows.

The gateway, portal, hole, whatever you could call it, began to close. And as Basil continued to get closer to see its surroundings, the person that had just opened this up turned around. Their eyes met, both of them having blue eyes. 

The portal closed before any of them could react to one another.

~~~

His frustration had never peaked this high, maybe that one time, but this was different. A fucking random child - probably only a bit younger than him - was chasing him around town while he was trying to help them!

His rift closed, leaving him alone in the quite busy portal hub of the Entry Point. He could see a couple of Manos walking around, waving to him happily and showing their support. Some Feloids were walking by, their wings colourful like a Compass Gem, and talking.

Once they noticed him walking by, they waved using their wings, a secret gesture of respect that could have been missed if he wasn’t looking. It reminded him of a wish, that the other species they had discovered were able to discover the world with them, another thing he hated about that moth.

The metal walls and Altenium floors were beautiful, patterns and the many colourful Gems made this giant spaceship a piece of art. One of his favourite patterns was on the ceiling of the rooms, a storm with a tornado in the middle, spiralling to the darkness.

Well, as dark as they could make it. There were no black Gems after all.

He left the portal room, walking by the couple of people that were staring at the window. He turned around and saw another spaceship flying towards their cannon. It was pointed towards a destroyer of worlds. He wished that they killed that monster, but that they wouldn’t have to go so far with their plan.

Charles quickly continued walking towards the two places he wanted to “visit”, the first one being only two turns away. He hid his head, trying not to be seen by anyone around him. Even if most supported what he did, some of them had a different opinion; and they would not stop publicly showing it with their fists.

“A-Level Storage Room” was written above the door. The third highest - in level - storage room. It had a bunch of stuff every mission he did needed, and all of that stuff was in there. Weapons, Gems, Altenium, Pouches, Books, Equipment, and more Charles did not really care about.

He was lucky that they hadn’t revoked his Storage privileges, he was too smart, too useful for them to kick him out or execute… and also Solana had threatened to suicide if they had hurt him in any way…

The fact that he wouldn’t be surprised that she would do it made him shiver… After all, he would have killed himself a long time ago if they did the same thing to him…

Charles entered the room, and quickly began taking as much as possible. Checking the shoe sizes, the Gem guns, the Gem amulets. He took a couple of Gem pouches, and picked the best ones. Many of them were used, but most of these Gems were still glowing vividly, and their edges weren’t rough.

These rocks had saved his life so many times, he wishes that he could know so much more about their nature. Signal Space was not focused on that though, and it probably never will be.

Charles sighed, tying two bags of Gems and a gun to his belt, adding to his Altenium Glove, and the pouch of Space. Its limited space was still useful, as anything he put in there, shrunk. It was the rarest thing he had, and the only one he had designed in here.

Happy to have restocked, he left the storage room and went to his second destination.

The Archives.

He couldn’t fix a sister dimension without knowing how to do it.

Chapter Text

“...Kill him…” That could be a little harder.

<~~~>

Hero entered the house, holding his two heavy plastic bags in hand. He sighed deeply, knowing that he would have to tell Kel. It felt a bit that he had failed him in a way.

After a moment, he heard someone running down the stairs. A silhouette of his taller brother approached from the floor above. Kel’s hair was ruffled, and it looked as if it hadn’t been washed for a decade. His pyjamas were in better condition, although they were stained with that orange soda.

Luckily, the pyjama itself was orange, making the stain barely visible to anyone that would not be able to focus on it. Henry didn’t know if it was because the pyjama actually came orange, or if it was painted so many times by this drink that it turned to that hue.

“What did you buy today?” Kel instantly ran up to him and took both of the bags, before scouring through the bags; putting them onto the kitchen counter.

“The standard,” Hero took off his shoes and walked up to him, “No Orange Joe,”

“You seriously can’t see a child enjoying his favourite drink?” Kel questioned, stopping his search efforts, even though he saw some sweets he would steal later.

“You know that you would be a lot stronger if you ate well?” Hero grinned and watched his brother eye his soul.

Kel rolled his eyes and began helping him with the unpacking of the groceries.

The sounds of plastic bags didn’t stop, as the two of them filled up the fridge. This would be enough for the next two days, maybe three if Kel was feeling particularly full from the amount of food. Kel couldn’t take anything from it now, not until they finished emptying the bags.

It took them a couple of minutes to do exactly that. After that workout, Hero decided to walk around the living room and grab a chess set from the shelf under their TV. He sat down on the couch, and began taking out the pieces.

Kel joined him after drinking a different soda, he had an expression of mild disgust on his face. He put the soda on the tiny table next to the sofa, before jumping onto it and making all the pieces on the chess board bounce.

“This again?” Kel stared at his brother, “I told you am too dumb for that,”

“If you focus you could learn a lot more,” Hero rolled his eyes, putting the pieces back in their starting positions.

“Can’t you find someone more focused then?” Kel took one of the white pawns and put it two squares forward before Hero even finished putting his pieces in the correct place.

“I think that I can’t find anyone else,” Hero stated, “I saw Aubrey today and she just wanted to leave as fast as she could,”

“I am sure she didn’t mean it that way,” Kel replied, waiting for Hero to make his move. His brother was not looking at the board though.

“She literally asked if she could go,” Hero told him, “If that isn’t proof that they need time, then I do not know what does!”

“You’re right then,” Kel shrugged and pointed at the board. He took his black pawn and moved it to the G5 square, so that these two were touching each other. “I still want to talk to her,”

“So why don’t you just go outside?” Kel played another pawn, this one landed on the F3 square.

“Can’t really play sports in this snow,” Kel shrugged, staring at Hero pushing another pawn towards the centre, the D5 square.

“But you can still go to Aubrey,” Kel nodded and looked at him confused, before pushing his pawn to the D4 tile and waiting for his move.

“Yeah, not like… I am in a rush…” Hero took a deep sigh, and put his horse on C6.

They continued to play the game, at home.

Away from the Sun they once loved…

And cared for.

~See what you didn’t know,~

Aubrey was lost. She looked at the, now empty, hideout. There was snow, ice and water covering the grass and everything around the pond. The picnic basket wasn’t here, hidden away somewhere. The trees around were slowly losing their white hue.

It already overwhelmed her, but she had to ignore it.

She could see footsteps around the pond, probably Basil’s, she guessed. The depressed girl looked at the pier, and stepped on it. The wood was slightly unstable; if too many people stood on this wooden structure, it would probably break.

No thoughts, stay stagnant.

Aubrey walked to the edge of the platform. Sitting down on the slightly wet wood, her legs hanging from the side. Her clothes were already wet, making this position more annoying than it would normally be. She grunted quietly, annoyed at everything. 

Do not think too much.

At herself, at her friends, at the world. Everything that could make her miserable, did. And she fought back, swinging back at the world. She had always done that, and she would never change; as Aubrey was alone. No one understood her, no one ever did.

He did, and now he’s dead.

Frustrated, the girl looked around. The memories of her better life flashed around her. She stood up, trying to stand above them. Aubrey glanced at grass; her younger self was running around, laughing and giggling, while the others ate or rested on the blanket. 

You did this.

She saw the pier; Kel, her, Basil and Sunny, talking to each other and having fun, the water under them still as ice. She turned towards the monument; Aubrey could see Sunny, about to jump down into the water. The girl rushed to the edge, seeing the ghost of her close friend plunge into the depths. She couldn’t see the water move, instead a corpse of Sunny was in front of her.

No. Please.

Blood, a lot of blood, was spilled onto the ice. Its red hue didn’t change the transparent cold material. It seemed as real as everything else around her. She tried to touch the liquid, it stained her finger. The skin was broken and pierced by bones. His eyes, dead and empty, filled with more life than ever before. His hair ruffled, unwashed; they covered his broken head. 

His limbs cracked and deformed. Aubrey’s eyes were locked onto the corpse, so focused she didn’t notice that she was crying. Out of nowhere, a child's voice shouted something. She quickly turned around.

Aubrey - crying and close to breaking down into a puzzle - stared at the entrance, seeing Basil walk up to her when she was crying; the first time they met. He was coming closer and closer, running to her, to help. As he stepped onto the pier, it didn’t shake.

Is this real? Please tell me…

His clothes and boots were not wet, or muddy, like hers. The snow below him didn’t seem to react to him.

This wasn’t real… and yet it couldn’t be that way. This was reality, not a vivid memory teasing her, with what was a better life; an innocence she would never come back to.

The boy was now looking at her, as if he knew that she was older. Aubrey didn’t react, her cries were the only things losing their frozen - static - nature. Suddenly, she could see another person standing behind him, herself. A version of her that was happy, a person she now wished to have stayed. She looked nicer, less stressed and dishevelled. Her hair was still brown, her eyes weren’t cyan.

Aubrey should have appreciated what she had then. She tried to process herself, trying not to think about the negatives… But in the past she had friends and family… Yes, she had them now as well… didn’t she?

No.

The fake suddenly changed, quickly being fueled by rage, but not depressed and tense like she was now. Her brown hair turned into a vivid pink in one fell swoop. When her parent was still alive, she still had a house, a chance. She would do so much to come back to that, even if she still would hate it.

The fake approached young Basil before gripping onto his shirt tightly and pulling him up. The child struggled, he started to scream and try to get out. His eyes began to blur like Aubrey’s, the real girl looking at the whole scene in disbelief. She wanted to stop it, but before her body moved, she saw that the young Basil was thrown to the icy ground of the lake, the same place where Sunny’s corpse was.

Scared and surprised, she fell with the fake boy, falling down onto the ice. Almost instantaneously, she felt her whole body hurt, the cold quickly gripped onto her skin, piercing her winter clothes. The ice was more than cold, it was freezing.

She touched the cold ice of the lake, trying to get up and falling. Stuck in this position she painstakingly rolled onto the other side. Her back was making itself known, as the jacket probably couldn’t cushion the entire fall. Aubrey, now as cold as an ice statue, used her hands to grip onto the ice in a very unreliable manner. Even if it was very uncomfortable, she slid on the ice towards the edge of the lake.

Once she got close enough to the ground, she held onto the dirt and mud, and pulled herself back onto the ground. The traumatised girl stood on her two feet once again, her shaking body making sure that she remembered about the cold. Aubrey inspected the ice again, finally acknowledging the fact that it didn’t break. The ice of the pond was so thick, that there were no cracks, as if nothing had happened.

No thoughts, no thoughts, no thoughts, no thoughts…

Except a single crack… that she couldn't quite see…

~~~

Kim sat down in the warm inside of Gino’s. The red couch wasn’t very comfortable, but it was good enough for her. She had spent the whole day walking around town, telling the whole scooter gang that she needed them in Gino’s at 5. Kim could have told them what she was planning, but as the good leader she is, she didn’t do that. Leaving them in mystery just made them come by quicker than she expected them to.

She looked at the clock, it was two minutes till five. She knew that they weren’t the bunch that would come to the event an hour before time, but they were on time if something like this happened. Especially that the whole group kind of disintegrated since Aubrey turned... Everyone went their separate ways, and that was understandable.

The first ones to come were Angel and Mikhael, the two worked together in the bakery, so it wasn’t surprising. They came in their casual winter clothing, probably finishing their shift slightly faster today. The next - and last - person to enter was Charlene. 

The whole group sat down in the far corner of the restaurant.

“So, why have you gathered us here?” Angel asked, leading the conversation, “I thought that magical warriors like me and my master would not be needed until Vance came back!”

“I have planned something very, very cool,” Kim whispered, trying to get Angel to match her more secretive tone.

“What do you mean Kim?” Angel continued, mimicking Kim’s whisper.

Mikhael didn’t react - too focused on the comic he had probably bought on the way here. Kim could see that he was still listening, even though he didn’t seem to care enough at the moment.

“Aubrey needs to know that we are here for her,” Kim explained, “I want to make a small party for her.” Everyone looked at her, thinking over the idea. A short while passed before Charlene nodded, the rest followed.

“Doesn’t she know that already?” Angel questioned, perplexed by the first part of Kim’s explanation.

“Even if she does, can’t we just have a good time once again?” Kim responded, getting a bit angrier at the boy. She sighed before finishing, calming herself down. “We won’t have time during school to make stuff like this again, so maybe it is a good idea to talk again.”

“Sure,” Charlene stated, her voice slightly more monotone than Kim had remembered. Kim could see that tallest one's eyes, they shone with excitement. Angel was smiling, while Mikhael stopped reading his comic.

“What is the master plan, Kim?” The comic reader asked. 

Kim stood up from the table, a small burst of adrenaline going through her body. She went next to the radio, a chalkboard and chalk she had brought here before were revealed to them. Kim pushed it into their view, picking up the chalk and writing “MASTER PARTY PLAN:” on it.

 “It is great you ask Mikhael! Since, we kind of have to make one.” Kim shrugged, before writing the first bullet point (which was “Location”) and instantly crossing it off.

“How did you get this in here? Some kind of magic?” Angel asked. Kim ignored his question, almost laughing at the fact that Mikhael was rolling his eyes.

“What ideas do you have?” Kim continued, looking at her three friends. “The only thing I have right now is a bunch of balloons and making a deal with the cashier here.” 

She pointed at the counter behind them, the person that was having their shift was gone.

“We need food, not only pizza and sandwiches. We also need music, which is already here.” Mikhael listed, his head had as many ideas as Kim. Kim nodded, writing all of that down, as well as adding “Drinks” next to food.

“Maybe a gift?” Charlene said quietly, her voice close to a whisper. The group mutually agreed, all of them began thinking of something that would interest them. The music playing through the radio was slow and ambient, as if the same song has been playing since yesterday. 

“Maybe a new bat?” Angel proposed, his idea was even a somewhat miss to him, “We could decorate it with something less deadly than nails.”

Kim thought about it, and after a short moment, wrote it down on the board.

~~~

The sun was setting, Basil’s hunt didn’t go anywhere. The flower boy had just entered the house and took off his jacket, and the whole day had gone nowhere. After yesterday, the person was nowhere to be seen. 

Basil knew that he could already give up, maybe he had been hallucinating this entire thing? His stomach growled, he had been so occupied with this that he had forgotten to eat more during the day.

It annoyed him that the whole day was spent doing literally nothing. The only thing that entertained him was the Hooligang going around the town and messing around, probably working on that secret party. They were easy to focus on.

The flower boy looked out of the window, the sky was already turning dark. The snow would stay here for another day or two. After that, it would be gone. He sighed, a small sadness dancing around in his head, probably grinning deviously as the white winter he liked disappeared. He had hoped that it would come back soon.

Basil went up into his room, and threw himself onto his bed. He needed to think. At that moment he had realised that food isn’t the only thing he forgot, as he had skipped his weekly therapy session. Another frustration to worry about before Polly came back.

The flower boy was confused; puzzled by the fact that all of it might have been… fake. 

It can’t be! He shouted inside, remembering the light that he and Cris had seen. The strength couldn’t be fake, especially that she had seen it too. 

It was all too weird that all of this has started happening in this boring town. Maybe this was something that no one noticed, that he didn’t notice, while they continued their normal robotic lives.

Basil ran around his mind, looking for the best idea. One side of him wanted to give up, and continue if and only if he would see another weird thing or person that could prove that he wasn’t going insane. His more devious and courageous side, he had been trying to build up recently, told him something else. 

To get backup.

~See what it can show.~

Kim left her house late at night. She couldn’t sleep, knowing that this loose end wasn’t tied yet. Right now, she was walking in the ice cold air. The entire pathway, and neighbourhood, was lit up by the moon floating in the sky… it seemed slightly less dark than before… maybe due to the light she had seen?

Was it real?

Her steps were as loud as the ambiance that made the night itself. Small puddles of cold water and leftovers of ice were still on the walkway, yet she didn’t have to worry about them too much. The slight gusts of wind made the entire walk more refreshing than she expected it to be.

The roads were empty, noiseless; Kim sprinted to the other side of the crossroad, not really scared of any cars, but the fact that it was now tradition… or something? Maybe a reflex she thought she could control?

It didn’t matter, as she never really thought about controlling herself.

Basil’s house was dark, the windows not lit up enough for him to be awake. Yet, she didn’t really want to do this during the day. Talking to him already felt kind of weird, and she was lucky her friends didn’t question her…

Knock! Knock!

…maybe because they didn’t care?

The lights in the house suddenly turned on, as Kim realised that she actually knocked on the door before finishing her thoughts. The lights made the moon seem like a candle burning metres away from her. The colours of the walls and concrete around her were more vivid. 

She looked down, at the freezing grass, and noticed a letter in front of the door. It seemed to be a little wet. Kim picked it up, standing with it in hand, small droplets of water dropping off of it. Steps of someone walking downstairs were coming from the building she was standing in front of, before Basil opened the door.

His hair was messy, his eyes were barely open and his movements were all around more sluggish than before. The cold air woke him up though, as she quickly noticed Basil’s quick blinking and goosebumps appear all over his arms.

“W- what are you doing…?” Basil asked, barely stuttering and closing the door behind her. She passed him the letter, and he snatched it from her.

His eyes opened once again, reading the letters that were written on the envelope, before opening it and reading its contents. The expression on his face was not one of happiness, as the more Basil read, the more disturbed he became. 

“I- Is- Th- T- at- i- it?” He said incomprehensibly, holding the letter with a hand that was shaking stronger than an earthquake.

Before she could answer, Basil went to the kitchen and dumped the paper inside the trash can. Kim followed him, worried about what was written on that sheet of paper. Secretly, she wanted to take it out of the trash, just to see it. Basil wasn’t wasting any time, he was opening shelves left and right, looking for something.

“I also don’t want you to come to… y’know…” Kim added in.

“S- sure…” He replied, agreeing - even though he was slightly confused with her decision. He was too tired to overthink it right now anyways.

While Kim was already almost out of the house, Basil’s eyes brightened up a bit, as he opened up something, and took… something weird out of it. It was small, and maybe there were multiple, but she didn’t really see from that distance.

Kim was too far already, holding the door and pulling the door knob towards her, opening it and entering the cold once again.

She would ask him about this later, but right now, she wanted to sleep.

Chapter Text

“...Find the other Rifts…” Was this a joke? A bad April fools joke? They knew he couldn’t fight, it was the reason he was here. But this…

<~~~>

Cris didn’t know what was happening. A minute ago she was sleeping, lying in her pile of blankets and having another weekend of her life. Now she was standing outside in her pyjamas, listening to Basil talk about something, while she was freezing in the snow.

His words were less understandable than the slight wind outside, as the cold breeze of the winter morning was beginning to remind her about her lack of proper clothing for this temperature. Not only was she shaking from the cold, but Cris could feel her hair cover her blurry eyes.

“Basil,” Cris said in a sleepy voice, “Could you tell me in a bit? I am kind of… spacing out right now.”

“U- uh- sure,” He stammered out an answer; slightly embarrassed… or not. She couldn’t really see. Cris could see the bags under his eyes, as well as his hair being unreasonably chaotic. 

She couldn’t even call it messy or unruly, it was just… she couldn’t explain it. Her mind was as fast as… something surely.

Cris stepped back into her house, the shaking instantly stopping. She glanced back at Basil and closed the door without any care in the world - even if she considered him a friend. They hadn’t spoken a lot, but she never had any negative experiences with him.

After going upstairs, brushed her teeth, changed, and almost flopped back into her bed. Luckily, her parents shouted at her and reminded Cris of the fact that Basil was not - in fact - a hallucination, but a real person standing outside their house.

She groaned (kind of wishing she told him not to wait outside for her), snatched an apple from the kitchen and ate it as she went towards the front door. Surprisingly, there wasn’t any knocking through the whole ordeal. 

Once she finished the apple, Cris put on her fluffy winter jacket and went outside. A cold wind hit her, reminding her of the night she and Basil… 

Don’t tell me that’s why he’s here, She thought.

Basil was standing against the wall, one of his eyes was closed while the other was opened barely enough for him to see what was happening outside. The boy stood up from his somewhat comfortable position, his fingers covered with a thin layer of ice and water from the wall. 

Cris closed the door and shivered a little, the frigid air piercing her clothes.

“So,” Basil started to say. Probably too tired to stutter, he in fact yawned before continuing. “I- I- I need some… help...” 

She raised an eyebrow, perplexed about what the boy was saying.

“Can’t you ask Aubrey or somethin’?” Cris asked, questioning his decision, as well as trying to go back to the comfort of her house again. 

This wasn’t a quiet walk in the middle of the night, she could hear children screaming from the park, and one or two cars passing by every couple minutes. She could even see some members of the Faraway Gang, or whatever they are called, go outside.

“Well, you saw the light,” Basil yawned again, “And I kind of don’t trust anyone else with this… thing. I have been trying to chase this strange guy and you are pretty athletic so… I just thought… you might help?” 

Cris didn’t really want to believe him, in fact she still thought that night was a dream. Yes, it felt real, and it was too vivid to be one; but her mind didn’t want to register the fact that it was something she was actually experiencing.

Either way, she was intrigued by something grandiose happening in Faraway. The city has been dull since a couple years ago, and knowing that one event wasn’t a standalone made her somewhat happy. She didn’t know what Basil meant by “strange” person, another reason to follow his lead.

“So, what are you planning to do?” She asked. Neither Cris or Basil were ready for what was eventually going to happen.

~ Not real, or fake, ~

Aubrey honestly wasn’t sure what was happening. She woke up earlier than usual, still tired of the nightmares that haunted her. She quickly forgot about them, staying frozen in time was the best for her. From the moment her eyes had opened, she felt that something was wrong. 

She walked to Kim’s room to see that she wasn’t there. Then, she asked her parents if they knew where she had gone. Her mom said that Kim had left the house very early, but she wasn’t worried since it was Kim after all.

And so - in her boredom - she decided to leave the house, alone. The girl calmly walked around, looking for her friend - maybe roommate. Like everyday, today was a planless day, but it didn’t mean that she had to spend it on lying in bed again. 

Maybe it was the snow melting, or the fact that even Basil was talking to someone else; nonetheless, Aubrey felt adventurous. Was it that ice incident? Did it make her alive?

In Aubrey’s quest to make her day somewhat exciting (forced to ignore her thoughts), she tried to keep track of everything happening around her. That didn’t last long, as it was kind of impossible to spin around and remember every word and every step of a person. 

Then, she wanted to go to Gino’s. Not only was she kind of starving, but Aubrey saw Angel inside of the restaurant. He was pumping balloons for some reason.

When she opened the door, she was instantly stopped by the worker at Gino’s. He told her that they were closed and that she could come back later. 

Aubrey tried to argue for a bit, pointing out that Angel (who somehow disappeared) was there seconds ago, and the fact that there were a couple of balloons in the building for no reason. The worker wasn’t budging - trying to hide the sign that showed that the place was opened.

After that shouting contest, the girl sat down at the bench in the park. She looked at Mincy, Basil and Cris talking to each other. Basil was pointing out something on the picture that Mincy was currently drawing; while the other two were staring at him and then at the photo. The three reminded her of herself, Basil and…

In frustration, Aubrey pushed herself off the bench - almost flipping it over - and went towards the secret hideout. It solved her problems once, it could do it again… right? 

The girl walked on the pier, before sitting on its edge. Ignoring the light wind or the shining star above her. The puddles of ice and white sand weren’t something that disturbed her anymore.

Her mind was empty, and she herself didn’t know what to do. She looked at the lake below her, it was still frozen. Puzzled by the sight, Aubrey had a very stupid idea in her mind.

Aubrey looked at the grass and the monument, they were somehow almost devoid of any snow. The powder turned into sleet, ice or water. With all of that, the ice on this lake had to melt. 

And it didn’t. 

Aubrey turned around, held the edge of the wood with her hands, and jumped down onto the ice. Slightly scared that she would fall down and drown to her death, she held herself as strong as she could.

And nothing, she didn’t even hear a crack, or the ice breaking apart. Aubrey pulled her legs up (as much as she could as she wasn’t that strong) and hit the ice again. Not even a vibration or anything, as if the ice wasn’t melting.

Aubrey slowly crouched onto it, leaving only one hand holding onto the pier. She touched the ice with her other hand. It was cold and slippery, its texture identical to ice. 

Perplexed by her discovery - as if she hadn’t been on this ice a day ago - she continued to jump and stomp on the ice, trying to break it. Every single stomp was stronger than the last.

It didn’t take a while for her legs to hurt. The pain was minimal, and so she kept going. Aubrey didn’t even know why she was doing it anymore, but with every single jump, she felt that she was getting closer to her goal of cracking the ice. 

Until, she felt her head tilting backward, her legs kicking the air. Mid-fall, feeling her hair cover her eyes, she tried to stop her fall with her arms. It helped a tiny bit.

“Ouch…” She grunted, her back touching the cold texture once again. 

She looked up at the sky, her hair luckily lacking nerves. There were small clouds above, the sun shone onto her face. She turned her back, the sun making the back of her jacket a little warmer. 

Aubrey, not knowing what to do, waited. She listened for the wind rustling the leaves of the trees, and the wings of birds flying in the sky. Her ears heard quiet sounds of children screaming in the park until,...

Crack! As she realised that she was lying on the ice that had cracked a millisecond before, her pupils widened. 

Her eyes started to shake, awaiting a fall into the winter cold water. Aubrey forced her eyes closed, her breathing slowly turning into a series of panicked gasps.

Crack! Aubrey didn’t feel the water around her yet. The girl slowly opened her eyes, still scared of what was happening. Scared to move, she eyed the ice. 

Surprisingly, the sheet in front of her was not only not cracked, it didn’t even look like it was about to move. Aubrey, realising that she still might have a chance at escaping this dangerous place before dying, quickly gripped onto the ice and pushed herself like the day before.

This time, it was a lot easier; as she got into the rhythm a lot quicker. Another large change was the fact that Aubrey decided to grab onto the pier and pull herself up from there, instead of trying to grip onto the ground.

Once she was close enough to the wooden structure, she gripped onto the oak beam and stood up. Being very close to falling down head first onto the platform, she held it with both hands and pulled herself up again. The structure shook a little, showing its rotting planks less subtly than beforehand.

As she sat down on the pier, a small smile appeared on her face. It quickly turned into a confused one - as Aubrey analysed the cracks. A black light was coming through the cracks, as if it was a liquid, flowing up into the sky. 

Shocked, the girl rushed to the ground and began grabbing the snow in her hand, before throwing it onto the ice. She didn’t know what had just happened, but it didn’t seem like anything good.

Maybe coming here was not that good of an idea… , Aubrey thought.

~~~

Kim’s day had begun very early. She set her alarm to a very early hour, making sure that no one would stop her before she could leave the house. 

The alarm was a bad idea. When she heard it and saw that the sun was beginning to rise above the horizon, Kim wanted to throw the alarm out of the window, and slam it against the ground until it would stop its annoying sound.

Once she actually remembered the night before, the girl got up throwing her blankets off her and turned it off. After that, she speedily brushed her teeth and changed her clothes to something more fitting for the cold weather. As Kim left the house, she heard her mother shouting something out of her room. 

If her mother’s room wasn’t closed, she might have been able to hear her. Alas, Kim walked out of her house, holding a bunch of balloons and a pump for them.

Kim quickly met up with Angel, who was already awaiting her inside of Gino’s. It was his idea to wake up so early after all. After the two pumped a couple of balloons - Kim showing off her ability at popping them - Charlene showed up. 

She was holding a brand new bat that needed a lot of decoration. Kim didn’t really know how Charlene got it, nor did she want to question it, so the two of them left Angel alone on Balloon Duty™ and went to Fix-It.

After reaching the store, they waited inside of it for Mikhael. Not only was he the richest out of all of them, but they all agreed that he was kind of the best at art and general design. Sadly for them, Mikhael was almost an hour late. 

Kim wasn’t initially happy with that, but once she saw that Mikhael was finishing a final sketch of the drawing they were supposed to make. 

He gets to live another day, Kim sighed, a small grin appearing before a snigger.

Mikhael already had a couple of spray cans, and so the trio had gone behind Fix-It and put everything on the ground - wanting to make sure that Mikhael’s drawing wouldn’t get wet from the sleet, they put it on the cans as best they could.

Some of them were one wind gust from falling away

And this has been Kim’s whole day till now. Kim and Charlene were now spraying and painstakingly trying to copy what Mikhael drew. Lucky for Mikhael - who would probably comment and stop what they were doing at this moment - he was asked to buy some snacks, cups and drinks for the party. Kim wondered if this party would make him lose at least half of his earnings.

“Kim, not that much!” Charlene said as loud as she could, waking her up from her mindscape. Stunned by the fact she went a bit too much with the pink, she instantly put the can in the ground, burying one tenth of it in the sleet. 

She turned the bat around, seeing if it matched the image Charlene was holding.

“Eh, close enough,” Kim said, shrugging and picking up the black can. She shook it a little before beginning to spray it onto the bat.

~ Reality is at stake. ~

“So this small person here that you sketched in here is the one we are looking for?” Cris asked, pointing at the large sketch Mincy was drawing. 

Basil was standing on the other side of Mincy, inspecting the half done artwork. Meanwhile, Mincy felt kind of crushed in between the two; her shoulders and arms unnaturally close to her while her eyes went back and forth.

“Yeah, that looks like it,” Basil said, not really staring at the sketch of the unknown person, staring mostly at the coloured version of him, running after him. 

“Thanks Mincy, sorry for surprising you like that.” As he said that, both he and Cris distanced themselves from Mincy, looking at her now.

“No worries,” She whispered, trying to not make any eye contact, “I am happy you noticed me painting here.” Basil smiled as much as he could, his yawn stopping it instantly. 

Cris and Basil walked off, quickly making their way towards the road that connected all of the streets together.

“So we are looking for flat footsteps and a weird looking person in white clothes?” Cris repeated the words she heard from Basil before they saw Mincy drawing something. 

It was a fortunate accident that she sketched the person… and Basil. It didn’t really help them a little, and Basil was able to help Mincy with that person, as she wanted to erase him - due to the fact she didn’t remember how he looked.

Basil hummed in response, too tired to even say yes. As they walked, he felt his eyes slowly close, and his legs slow down. He felt really exhausted…

“Basil..?” Cris’ bump into his shoulder woke him up, at least for now. “Can you even walk?” She eyed his slow walking, her head slightly tilted to the side.

“I can’,” He responded, his eyelids slowly falling back into their resting position. It didn’t take a while for them to open again, as Cris shook him violently.

“We can do this tomorrow,” Cris argued, holding him by the shoulders, making sure he didn’t fall asleep.

“We can’t wait!” Basil shouted back, getting out of her grip. “We can’t wait- HE IS RIGHT THERE!” Basil suddenly shouted, seeing the familiar figure staring at them from the other part of the concrete path.

The person seemed to have heard that, as the finger pointing at him confirmed that he had been found once again.

Cris, stunned by the shout, turned around, and saw the person for the first time. Basil’s description was surprisingly bad, even though the person’s suit was kind of minimalistic.

The boy who should have drunk coffee beforehand, was already steps away from her. Cris - curious to see where this thread will lead to - sprinted forward towards the two of them.

Wanting to end this weird game of tag.

~~~

Her bright red wings of dominance turned the colour of the rooms she was in. That visibility itself would normally be seen as a weakness, as she could be easily found. But, due to her position, sitting at the top of the Entry Point, that was not a concern.

Civil wars were something close to an afterthought for everyone, trying to save everything…

The ones who failed to help - for the greater good - or even fought back, were killed off instantly.

She turned around, her two antennae on the top of her head helping her hear some of the conversations outside her door. Her guards were chatting about the boy… that problematic little fuck.

  The moth was sitting on her comfortable chair - that looked more like a swing - glancing at the artefacts and Gems she had been collecting over the years. Most of them weren’t made by her, making them special… one of a kind one might say.

The metallic walls didn’t stop them from being pieces of art, ones she made herself while bored in between meetings. They weren’t as beautiful as the artists that she had gathered… but beauty was subjective - meaning it didn’t have any value at this moment in time.

Behind her desk, was a giant window. It was also red, reflecting the colour brightly. That was not because of her powerful wings, it was because of a Titan. A Titan that was close to entering their dimension, and destroying it.

A monster that they had to stop.

A Gem that had gone rogue, and they didn’t know why.

Is it your work, Cyzor? She asked herself, remembering about the boy, Is this your creation?

They were days away from gathering all the Tree Gems needed to fire their weapon for the first time. It would possibly erase the monster from their dimension in mere nanoseconds. They could slowly cleanse Riftworld from its grasp.

She felt a smile creep on her face, before she forced it back into its neutral state.

She could smile when they win. Not now.

The Feloid glanced back at her desk, looking at the many screens she had installed. All of them trying to find a single brat in the cosmos.

Cyzor.

She didn’t need him now, per se. But his capabilities… It worried her. That boy could be more powerful than her…

The leader shook her head, dismissing those thoughts. The search for him would continue, and she won’t stop until she knows he is dead.

Chapter Text

“...And close them.” She finished talking. For him, the last task seemed the easiest.

<~~~>

Sunny’s Mother woke up in her house, a smell of… dust welcomed her. Every single time she woke up, seeing the cobwebs filling the corners and a bug or two walking around searching for some heat, she was reminded that it was her fault everything fell apart. Her first mistake, or series of mistakes, were the multiple fights against her only husband. Liam was someone she loved, someone she loves even now. And he loves her too, they both knew that.

They both know it.

But, when the kids came, he got so overprotective over them, making sure that they were doing well. Maybe it was the fact that he had a very difficult life, or that he wanted them to live; the life he was never allowed to live. One day, the two got very mad over what now seems like nothing.

That tainted pond…

I let him there , she thought, lying on the bed, feeling the lack of warmth around her.

She slept in her clothes, as she didn’t bring any pyjamas. The woman didn’t want to smell them.

Adra could have taken the clothes that her neighbours, and old friends, were very willing to give her. Adra didn’t expect to stay in Faraway. She couldn’t even work from here, as she didn’t take anything that was useful. A one day trip turned into another nightmare.

She got up from the bed and wished that she could go back to sleep and skip the next two days. As she had to wait for Liam to drive for around ten hours to her. 

It wasn’t his or her fault, they just wanted to spend Christmas with people they didn’t get to see. Adra and Liam were still a couple, it had just been hard for him to accept that Sunny was his child.

Obviously, Sunny wasn’t their favourite; all of them knew that. 

The whole family knew that, even the ones that couldn’t feel the cold today. 

Adra always stayed in the city, wanting to spend most of her life with Liam, not with a living corpse of a murderer. 

Liam didn’t even know Sunny was still alive, she just said that he killed himself.

And so she came to feed the monster - that is how she viewed him - and then ran away as fast as she could without seeming like a completely absent parent.

Adra opened the door of her room, the hinges barely working. She yawned and stepped downstairs, walking on the curse that everyone points at as the beginning of the end. Her second mistake, or once again, a series of mistakes.

The sound of planks bending beneath her, made her arms shakier than they had been before.

The recital , she thought. 

The steps creaked below her… even when the woman was close to the floor. 

The push was just fuel added to something that could be considered a wildfire. She didn’t blame herself for not saving Mari, or for not watching and being with them in the house that day. 

The event itself was almost as cursed as she was. No matter the outcome by the end of the day - everything would have broken down either way.

She and Liam heard the shouting, they heard Sunny crying, they saw the blood on the floor and papers. And both of them did nothing, trusting Mari that it was right. That their perfect daughter would never do this to the brother she loved. 

Now - out of her past delusions - she saw that they were the actual monsters. Instead of being parents, they were spectators. Watching a bridge burn down, and then staring at a flying corpse that was just a severe byproduct of a lost cause.

If Mari would be alive, Sunny would never be happy. 

That realisation only hit her when Sunny’s corpse was lying next to Mari’s.

Her thoughts about these days stopped, as her two feet reached the ground. She snatched the jacket that wasn’t even hanging next to the door, as there was nothing in the room anymore, and forced herself out into the cold.

The bright winter sun shone at her face, blinding her for a short moment or two, before her eyes adjusted to the cloudless sky. A short gust of wind blew her hair, freezing the top of her head almost instantly.

Adra eyed the broken car, the woman had tried to ignore before. She didn’t know what happened to it. The only thing Adra knew was the fact that it didn’t work. 

Thinking that she would be able to fix the machine herself, she decided to try using the tools from Fix-It (only taking them for a day or two before giving them back) to save her the trouble of calling her husband. 

Sadly for Adra, or Liam (probably both), she had to get picked up and the car had to be taken to the city. She sighed, wanting to kick the damn thing one more time.

The woman stopped herself as she was about to smash her left leg into the metal machine. As she put her leg down, she kicked some of the tools she had borrowed. 

I should give them back today, she thought, looking at the straight street down into the town.

She looked back at the metal scrap. The car didn’t work, as something froze inside of it during the night she stayed at this rotting house, not wanting to drive in the snowstorm and night… The doors were still broken as well. 

And now Adra had to wait for her only family member left, Liam. 

Liam hadn’t been to Faraway since he drove away, so maybe he would be able to catch up with everyone here.

The woman rolled her eyes, and bent down, before picking up the toolbox and everything that was lying on the floor. 

As she stood up, feeling the weight of the box, Adra saw some teens running from the other side of the road. One of them looked somewhat familiar, while the other two didn’t even remind her of anyone here. The one in the front, running away from the two behind, was wearing some weird clothes.

They seemed to be playing a nice game of tag… or not?

Adra shrugged and slowly went towards Fix-It.

~ Don’t believe it's an illusion, ~

Why am I even helping him…? Cris asked herself while trying to concentrate on not slipping due to the mounds of ice still covering the pavement.

This chase had lasted a couple of minutes already. In that short amount of time, she had almost slipped twice, and had to slow down three times since Basil insisted that they had to stay together.

At least it’s good exercise , She thought, staring at the weird teen that clearly knew that they were chasing him. 

He was intriguing to say the least, as his white clothes somehow reflected the light of the sun, his shoes looked uncomfortably flat, and his pants looked somewhat stiff compared to anything she had seen before.

“Faster Cris!” Basil shouted, the boy was now in front of her, his steps big and small, scared of falling and even being at a slight angle. 

Basil continued to stare at the floor, barely dodging the ice and making the right steps. It looked like he was walking on stairs but… concrete and straight. The three (as the mysterious person in front was already sweating) were starting to feel their feet get heavier and heavier with each step. Their breathing quicker than before.

Cris could feel the slippery but still hard concrete of the pathway, small splashes accompanying her silent stomps. The water, slush and ice that was covering the walkway spread around, reminding them of the fact that it was snowing days before. 

The three humans continued to run, until the one in the front suddenly turned right, almost slipping and falling onto his face.

 Basil and Cris, stopped for a moment; before instantly speeding up - even if their legs, hearts and lungs were beginning to give up.

As Basil and Cris approached the turn, one of them - Basil - didn’t notice that he was going too fast. Basil slid a bit further down the pathway, losing his momentum and also some sanity. 

At the moment he stopped, the boy realised how tired he was. He could feel and hear his chest move quicker than his legs, his heart pounding..

But, before he could give up, he looked at Cris still running into the space between the two regular houses. And so Basil took a deep breath, calming himself, before picking up speed and running towards her.

 The chase continued. 

Their pace a bit slower than before, the fact they were in a tight space not helping them at all. 

And just before Cris wanted to back out, her body unable to run for another minute or two, they had reached a corner. 

The mysterious person stopped in front of the sudden wall. It looked weirdly placed, and Basil (or Cris) couldn’t really figure out where they stood. They had run in between too many houses to know where they were at that moment.

Cris and Basil approached the one they had been chasing… disoriented, all of them could hear each other's long breaths and sharp gazes. 

As the birds sang above them, flying around as if they were interested in what was happening in the human world, the person in front of them - the person Basil had been trying to catch - turned around.

His hair was long and brown, untidy and unkempt. He was tall, very skinny, his arms and legs made that even clearer as they looked like they barely held him up. 

His stiff white clothes seemed to be made out of not cloth, but metal. The person’s face had one distinct feature, bright blue eyes, staring at Basil and Cris.

~~~

The bat didn’t look awful per se, but it wasn’t a work of art. The picture Mikhael drew looked at least ten times better, even if it was made with barely sharpened crayons and a black pen. Either way, it was too costly to try another time, so this had to be the gift.

Kim took the bat into her hand, looking at her spray painting skills, questioning her decisions. Charlene rolled the paper drawing of the bat, and put the empty cans inside of it. The two walked towards Gino’s, the pathway empty.

They stayed quiet, as there was nothing to talk about. The plan was going faster than expected. Kim didn’t really think that they would be done that quickly, forgetting the fact that she had said that the party will be in 2 days. It wasn’t like organising a party was complicated, it was just expensive. At least it was fun.

Kim and Charlene looked through the window to Gino’s. There was a significant change in the number of balloons, as there were at least thrice as many as there were before. The ceiling was still visible, but every time you would try to look at it, you would see at least three balloons. Angel was still sitting in the exact same place, next to him there was still one pack of balloons that hadn't been opened yet.

Mikhael was sitting next to him, with a pile of plates, snacks and cups already put in their places on the table. He was still changing the places of some of the snacks around, trying to make it look as professional as he could. It wouldn’t even last long during the party.

The two girls entered the restaurant and closed the door behind them. Charlene quickly sat next to Angel, before putting the sketch of the bat next to her - some of the cans dropping on the floor - picking up one of the balloons and hitting it up. 

Kim walked up to Mikhael, staring at the absurd amount of snacks on the table.

“Why the hell did you buy so much?” Kim asked, shocked, “We aren’t asking the whole town to party here! You know that, right?” Mikhael, calmly turned around and raised an eyebrow.

“We need food if we want this party to be memorable, and besides it is my money, I will take the snacks that will be left,” He replied, before coming back to the process of making every single distance inbetween the snacks perfectly the same.

She shrugged, not really wanting to fight the one that gave them the funds. She took one of the ropes of the balloons and pulled it down. Kim grabbed the balloon and sat next to Charlene and hit it as hard as she could - sending it flying to the other side of Gino’s.

The four continued to work on the party in the restaurant, and the radio continued to play, somehow playing the same song Kim had heard two days ago.

~ Don’t get lost in your delusion. ~

Aubrey left the secret hangout spot, or whatever it was called after being abandoned, and looked around the park. 

It was empty, as the snow that covered it days ago was now gone. Most of the place was now muddy and slippery, something that the children didn’t enjoy.

The sound of a cold wind rustling trees made her walk to the swings slightly less lonely. There were no birds flying through the sky, flapping their wings to their destination. There were no children throwing snowballs, no cars on the streets, as if the world had died in a matter of moments.

The world was still and empty. Cold.

She stood next to the swing, lost in what she was doing. Aubrey clung onto the chain that held the swing next to her. The swing moved a little before it turned back into its still motion. 

The girl looked at it, the colour that it once had was gone, a bit of mud covering its surface. She then turned her eyes to the swing on the far left, it was a lot less dirty.

Aubrey walked up to it, and slowly sat on it. The seat wasn’t that freezing, she had expected it to be colder. 

There was one issue, she felt the chains holding it up squeeze her. The swing was too small for her. Her legs were too long, as her legs would frustratingly touch the ground and stop her before she could gain some momentum.

She tried again and again, wanting to feel like he was here with her once more; able to listen to her and comfort her.

And then suddenly, Aubrey heard someone sit on the other swing. 

She looked to her right side and saw Kel, looking down at the ground. He wasn’t wearing a coat or any winter clothes. He wasn’t even trying to swing, to go up and down. He stayed in the same place, trying to be comfortable with the fact that it was too low.

“Do you need help… Aubrey?” Kel begged, his eyes still focused on the floor. 

Aubrey raised an eyebrow, and turned her head the other way… She didn’t respond. She didn’t know. She didn’t want to know. Just focus and-

“Is that a yes?” Kel added, his eyes suddenly eyeing her. 

Silence.

Lack of birds. Lack of focus.

Thoughts.

“I miss him too,” Kel continued, “All of us do.”

He is dead, he is fucking dead, Aubrey remembered. She didn’t want to. She- please-

Drops of water fell down onto the snow.

“And I know that I’ve been-” He choked on his tears, while Aubrey felt her hair being pulled. “Selfish and- I just forgot…”

Kel suddenly jumped off the swing, almost breaking the rusty chain as he still held onto it.

“I- I still care…” Kel looked up at the sky, crying.

He left before Aubrey realised that she was the one pulling her hair, not the one crying.

Kel was gone. Again.

~~~

His hand dipped into a leather bag, the other one putting on headphones and turning up them to almost maximum volume. Basil began approaching the teen, not really sure if this was a good idea.

A handful of rainbow glitter got thrown into the air, forming a perfectly polished blue boomerang that was beginning to fall. Cris rushed towards Basil anticipating an attack.

Her leg suddenly slid on a layer of ice that had been invisible to her, making her fall down onto the floor.

The mystery person took out a giant red axe made out of the same material as the boomerang, and in the span of a couple moments.

CRASH!

The boomerang pierced the houses around them as it began flying chaotically - but still mathematically perfect - in an arc.

Basil hopped back, too close to the melee weapon. He bumped into Cris, who had almost lost her balance once again.

The blue weapon was arcing towards them, forcing Cris to pull herself and Basil back even more.

Basil, reminding himself of his useless belt, took out a pair of gardening shears that he had attached to them and threw it at the man.

The scissors hit the wall behind him, not even close to the figure.

Basil quickly glanced at the person, as the axe dissipated and their enemy seemed to have taken two smaller grey cleavers with two diamond-like red and blue rocks slotted into their sides.

Cris eyed the sides of the buildings next to them, noticing that the boomerang had lost its speed and was now stuck to the left wall.

SHANK!

The person had created two (laser?) projectiles that were louder than the music playing in his earphones. The red and blue arcs - directed at Basil - had almost hit him.

Luckily, they had stopped less than half a metre away from the flower boy.

The enemy rolled his eyes and stepped forward, preparing for his next attack while Cris leapt towards the blue weapon that was still peeking out of the walls.

She picked the blue boomerang, feeling how light and smooth it was, before being forced to dash forward towards the enemy so that the double arcs wouldn’t hit her again.

SHANK!

Basil rushed behind Cris, walking on the leftovers of the walls that were on the ground, and tackled the teen that was focused on the girl.

This was not the smartest idea, as one of the cleavers had almost hit Basil. The only thing that stopped him from getting hit was the shock factor.

The enemy stepped back, and eyed at the blue projectile flying at him. He ducked, dodging the spinning weapon of death, before already slicing another attack back at them.

Basil had to move back - realising that he would be the aim of this one… 

SHANK!

And he was right!

He slid to the right, using the ice that still hadn’t melted. Cris, meanwhile, picked up one of the bigger chunks of wooden and threw it at him.

The chunk hit his belt and chest, not even making a dent in his armour.

The adrenaline rush that was going through all three of them was irresistible, similar to how the music in his headphones seemed to be getting even more exciting and chaotic each second it played.

Huffs distracted Basil from the…

SHANK!

Cris jumped at Basil, the two of them falling onto dirt. Her hair was cut a bit by the laser arcs. The blue boomerang returned for one more round and flew right into their enemy’s arm…

The music suddenly stopped as a loud beeping sound played from the arm, alerting probably everyone in the area. The sound pierced their ears, making them feel even more miserable than they were before.

In a tempo that was quicker than their heartbeats, Charles shot a rift into the fence wall that was somehow fully stable, and jumped into the portal.

The three minute long adrenaline rush had disappeared as fast as it had appeared.

The two of them - speechless to what just happened - stood up from the ruins and looked at the only thing left behind.

A leather bag full of rainbow glitter, opened on the ground.

On the same ground Basil was laying on right now.

~ One chance, don’t mistake, ~

“What the hell do we do with this?” Basil asked, sitting in one of the chairs in the living room. He and Cris had gone back to his house. 

The original plan was to just get the glitter thing working while they went to eat something at Gino’s, but after not being able to get it to work, they came back to Basil’s home. They didn’t want to spread this weird powder around Faraway, not wanting that person to catch them.

And so Basil and Cris sat in the living room, playing around with colourful dust. 

Basil even made some mint tea, as he was still trying not to fall asleep. The chair was incredibly soft and comfortable, and so Basil had to force himself to drink something more akin to honey than tea.

The two had already tried to pick up some of the glitter and change it into a weapon by holding it and thinking very very VERY hard. It didn’t seem like that was the case.

The powder could only be described as one thing, Magic. 

Maybe it actually didn’t connect to the brain, but it had some properties that couldn’t be explained by laws of physics - the ones that Cris and Basil knew about.

Maybe high school never led to that level of complexity. 

Basil put his hand in the “glitter” bag once again, his hands feeling the tingling sensation of the somewhat sharp dust before letting it go back into the bag.

“I don’t know,” Cris replied, sipping on her tea and trying to recall the battle and remember what the enemy was doing to actually create the axe. 

She stood up, put her tea back on the table, and put her hand in the pouch. 

She took a bunch of the powder and thought of an axe similar to his. Nothing formed. 

A deep sigh later, she put it back into the bag, trying not to make a mess.

It seemed that this lead was a dead end.

“Do you know anyone that has crazy dumb ideas we could try with this thing?” Basil asked and yawned, “If this is actual magic, maybe it works in a dumb illogical way we can’t even comprehend.”

~~~

Basil didn’t expect Cris to lead him to Kim. 

As Basil and Cris entered Gino’s, they saw a lot of balloons, food, and drinks ready on the table. The Hooligans, or what was left of them, were playing around. Goofing around and playing with the massive amount of balloons. Most of them were up touching the ceiling, only some of them being actual candidates for a game of- balloons staying up?

As the balloon bounced towards them, Basil held the pouch even tighter than before, trying to make it look like a normal leather bag. Cris, instead of following Basil’s lead, slammed the balloon forward and up, sending it to the other side of the room. Loud hoorays followed.

“Hey Kim! Can we talk to you for a second?” Cris called Kim, before anyone could ask what they were doing here. 

Kim glanced at Cris, before eyeing Basil. He waved hello but didn’t really say anything, feeling his shoulders tighten up. Basil hoped she wouldn’t ask about the drugs…

“Yeah sure, why not,” Kim shrugged and the three left Gino’s. 

They walked around Othermart, hiding from the other side. Making sure she didn’t get seen around it. A single paint can was lying on the ground.

“So, what’s the deal? Kim asked first, not really giving her time to explain. 

Cris sighed, hoping that it was a good idea to trust her with this information. Basil stared at Kim picking up the paint can, before throwing it back at the ground.

“We almost died, and now we have this. Don’t ask how or why but it doesn’t work… and you could… help?” Cris awkwardly tried to explain without revealing too much, trying to omit the magic parts. 

She took the leather bag from the boy, showing it to the girl. Basil stepped back behind Cris, trying not to show the fact that he was anxious as hell. Kim nodded along, trying not to seem as confused as she was, even if Basil had noticed her eyes widen a bit.

“And what is that supposed to do?” Kim questioned and looked to the side. 

Cris turned to Basil, who was hiding away behind her... She could have commented on it, but decided that she wouldn’t spark that kind of conversation.

Basil noticed the sun shine a bit too brightly at his face…

“Like… turn into an axe or a boomerang… thing…” Cris shrugged, her voice still somewhat wavy. 

Kim took the bag from Cris (making Basil grip onto Cris’ shoulder a bit too tightly), and slowly opened it up. She saw the glitter inside. The girl put a finger into the rainbow dust, feeling its spiky and tingly texture.

“I seriously don’t know how you got this drunk but this is just… glitter?” Kim returned the bag, “Did Basil give you those weird things he eats…?”

Basil snatched the bag from her hand, closing it and making sure it wouldn’t be opened by anyone else again. He silently left the two of them, not wanting to focus on that too much… the sun was also a bit too bright in that place after all.

~~~

Mincy was sitting down on the pier. Sitting in silence, even if it was cold, helped her calm down and concentrate on what she considered important at that moment. Her art.

She was sketching that weird person in her notebook, trying to figure out who he was and why Basil was so… interested in him? Or her?

When drawing him onto that large picture, she didn’t really think about it too much. He was just a tiny person, a couple of pencil lines, in a drawing so big that those flicks hadn’t mattered in the grand scheme of things.

She wished she could remember more.

The girl sighed, putting her notebook on her chest and lying down to look up at the sky. The bright lights - stars - were only visible from here in Faraway. Nowhere else could she see them, as headlights distracted the view.

Another thing she loved about this place, and the night.

She smiled, taking her time; not thinking about how stressed her parents would be if they weren’t asleep.

~ Reality is at stake. ~

“ The UnderVoid, also known as a destabilisation of a double dimension, is a dangerous place. Every UnderVoid we have found is different, none of them seem to share a pattern. Some of them are black wastelands, full of monsters and beings that we can’t even comprehend. Others are complete chaos, colours and rainbows everywhere.

All of that - and more - make the UnderVoids rare, menacing, vicious, bloody and basically unlivable. The main downside about them isn’t that fact though, as they are only 3 out of 5 on the danger scale; but these dimensions are useless. There is nothing of value in them, and the fact that they are fallen dimensions is just another gimmick.”

The boy with blue hair read. 

Another book about the only discoveries about the UnderVoid. It was the first one he found with the mention of this weird collection of dimensions. They called them fallen. 

The boy sat on his chair in his small safety bubble. In front of him stood his own creation and a Rift. The last one that hasn’t been destroyed by him yet.

The Rift was up in the sky, a large and very thin white line that floated. It was an entrance, a passage from one dimension to another. He could only see these rifts because of his glasses, that is why most creatures would never know about the other dimensions.

He walked up to the device below the Rift, he named it Rifde. His only friend.

It wasn’t that good of a name.

Most would use Rifts as openings into other dimensions, if they wanted to move something big that the rift gun couldn’t. 

There was one detail that made this process safe; the fact they closed the rift back.

The previous ones, and this one… They were small for now, but soon they would grow into one, making one large open rift. The biggest one that had been ever created in Riftworld.

All of this just because of one quote he found in a single book he read, one quote that he read as a child.

“ Technically, UnderVoids could have a lot of secrets. Sadly, they have been dismissed since their discovery, by the lack of time and people wanting to explore their properties. ”

And with all of his calculations and years of his life spent on this one single venture, that seemed to be more true than anything else he had read about the UnderVoids.

~~~

The night was coming. Adra had spent the whole day fixing what she had broken, giving back everything and preparing for two things. One of them was the fact that she would leave the house tomorrow, leave Faraway for another year.

The other thing was what she was doing now. Clouds were beginning to block the moonlight, as birds sang their last chirps before going to sleep. She walked down the pavement, no cars passing by at this hour. She felt a slight chill hit her face, forcing her to cover her face with her jacket. 

Houses were still showing their powerful light bulbs through their clean glass, as most stayed inside at this time of day. She had noticed some teenagers hanging out in Gino’s, probably having a party or something.

She walked down along the street, she passed by a couple houses before reaching her destination. Adra opened the door to the church, it was empty. It made her remember the third mistake she made, the third series of mistakes. Leaving Sunny alone.

After Liam left the house, as he was completely unable to control himself and his emotions, she was left with the boy. She had tried a couple of times to help him, but without Liam she wasn’t able to afford therapy. And then one day, Liam called her.

That day she made the third mistake in that series, telling Liam that Sunny had died. The father was very distraught by this news, even if he had seemed to hate the boy. Adra got convinced to live and work with Liam, to try to rebuild their relationship. 

In that short amount of time, Liam got therapy and improved. Yes, he wasn’t the best when she initially moved in with him, but they together were slowly improving.

Adra walked through the church. Her steps on the holy carpet echoed, every movement making a sound bounced off the walls, making it seem lonelier than before. 

Every bench was empty; the moonlight that was still shining through the piles of clouds, went through coloured windows. This place really looked holy, religious, at this hour.

After Liam’s begging, she also got therapy. She improved yes, but the therapist quickly caught on that she was lying about something, hiding it from everyone. The added fact that she had to come back to Faraway almost every single week made Liam suspicious.

One day, when she was supposed to leave, Liam finally asked her about the truth. And, it didn’t go well. It didn’t sit with him well that his son was still there, and was still alive. His progress kind of fell flat, as he lost his mind for a moment or two, before apologising constantly as if his life was about to end.

On that day, they decided to get Sunny back home. And so they began the process. They wanted to take everything, even the piano. This meant that Sunny stayed home for a bit longer, but it isn’t like he wouldn’t survive without her.

And then, a phone call.

And then, a long ride back.

And then, a funeral.

And then, a casket.

And then, a goodbye.

And then, a promise. A promise that she would never forget them.

And now, she stood in front of the graves of her only two children. Wishing that they would come back. She wished that she had done something, that she wasn’t so anxious, so wrong. She stood in the night, staring at two graves of what she once had.

No one heard her cries, no one heard her beg.

Except for a flower…

A flower she hadn’t noticed before, was on Sunny’s grave. It looked dead, barely standing in the pot that it was brought in. Nonetheless, it was still here.

Someone cared, someone else. Someone that-

It made her smile, even for just a moment. 

A single warm moment, a warm heart beat that fought against the cold… the ice she felt.

She took the flower, the cold pot freezing her fingers even more, and stood up… Ready to come home.

Chapter Text

“Do you know who this individual is?” He asked her. Knowing as much as possible would help him in a potential fight.

<~~~>

The sun was falling, slowly hiding itself. Stars and the moon were the ones shining onto the planet, making the night less dark to the human eye. Birds flew under tiny clouds, above the trees. Some of them were thriving in the night, while others tried to return back to their small nests.

Kim - who was now standing in front of her house - didn’t need to knock on the door, as she went inside. The house was sleeping, resting in the calm darkness of the night. Kim didn’t return to sleep, as her plan was finally going into motion. 

At least the final part.

The party was ready, and the only thing left was Aubrey. Mikhael, Angel and Charlene were already waiting for her and Aubrey with the surprise present.

She walked into the front room, everything was still in place. She could see the moonlight shine through the windows to her left, small particles of dust flying through the air. 

Kim didn’t really like the night, it was dark and mysterious, unnerving. The worst part about it was how everything would blend in. The colours and textures would become one.

She tried not to make any sounds, cautiously stepping onto the stairs. She held the railings tightly, before going up onto the second floor. Even though the walk up was slow and tedious, Kim didn’t want her parents to notice that they were going somewhere during the night. 

It wasn’t that they would be mad; but they would surely be very worried.

As she finally stepped onto the second floor of her home, Kim looked around to see if anyone heard her walk up. 

Silence answered. 

After a moment a second too long, Kim walked to Aubrey’s room and opened the door. She could hear a slight click of the door, before pulling the door knob towards her. She looked inside the room, and saw Aubrey in her pyjamas standing in the middle of the room - looking back at her.

“Am sleeping…” Aubrey fake yawned, “Can’t you see?”

“Well…” Kim started to say before she stopped…

“I came here to take you somewhere,” Aubrey raised an eyebrow at her friend’s words.

“Is it better than me going back to sleep?” Aubrey answered, turning around and beginning to walk towards the bed. Kim quickly blocked Aubrey’s path, just in case. Aubrey didn’t even fight back, just staring at her.

“Well, you will be the one to judge.”

~Shattered, like a mirror,~

Basil and Cris were sitting at the wooden pier. Flinging their legs back and forth, as they looked at the ice below them. Their faces were being reflected by the cold water of the lake; the same lake that had fired a beam up into the sky in front of their eyes days before.

Mincy was sketching something on the side. Her pencil movements louder than the air - muting some of the birds.

In between Basil and Cris, a leather pouch full of spiky glitter was lying on the wood. A small part of its contents were on the floor, as well as on the ice (Basil trying to make it work by throwing it onto the magical Ice - even if Cris tried to say that it is unreasonably dumb).

“We should be going,” Cris stated, Basil rolled his eyes and took a deep sigh. ”Unless you don’t want to come,”

“I can stay with Mincy,” Basil replied, looking over to the girl.

She didn’t reply, too focused on her quick and precise hand movements.

Cris didn’t stand up.

“Makes no sense then,” She smiled, before taking a handful of glitter from the bag.

The small shards were slightly spiky, luckily not piercing her skin. She made her hand tighter and tighter, thinking of the multiple weapons the person had used; until the powder started to leak through her closed fist. She grunted and threw the glass at the ice. It didn’t do anything except slide around and make it more colourful.

“What a surprise…” Basil suddenly sighed quieter than the pencil in the background, “We have tried literally everything. It is probably tied to him or something.” 

He grabbed the bag and tied it to his gardening belt, closing it in the process.

“Well, maybe Kim will have an idea?” Cris insisted, “We couldn’t have done everything.” 

Cris didn’t know herself why she cared about this so much, she could just go home or stay in the night with Basil and Mincy. There was just something about it, maybe it was the fact that something different was happening, this boring routine somewhat breaking apart.

“Maybe,” He shrugged and stood up, “I just don’t want to see her again,”

“It won’t be that bad,” Cris pulled herself up, holding his arm. “You can just ignore her till the party ends.”

“Aubrey will be there too,” Basil refused to leave where he was, “It will only cause problems,”

The boy untied the bag, still keeping it closed, and put it in front of Cris.

“Take it to Kim,” He begged quietly, “Please.”

“I won’t go without you,” She pushed his hand back towards him gently, making sure it wouldn’t fall down. Basil - quicker than she expected - jumped up and walked back to the pier.

“We go in, and out as quickly as possible.”

Cris went behind him, the two walking towards the party. Mincy - too focused on the drawing - didn’t notice the black particles that began to leak through the crack - covered by snow. A small light was shimmering around the crack. No one noticed it, even if it was slowly expanding.

~Secrets can be clearer.~

Aubrey didn’t know what was going on. The whole day was full of twists and turns, weird feelings and crying. Now, she and her best friend were walking in the middle of the cold night. 

She still felt very tired from everything, and desperately wanted to sleep. She actually would have, if not the fact that Kim was being slightly too loud in comparison to the silence of the night.

What she didn’t expect was loud music and colourful lights coming out of Gino’s. As they approached the restaurant, Aubrey saw Angel, Charlene and Mikhael inside. Angel and Charlene were playing with one of the millions of balloons, while Mikhael was reading a comic in the corner.

“Lights…” She asked, shocked. 

The lights flashing around Gino’s made her eyes water and blink. It was enticing but, so hard to look at.

“Come inside!” Kim shouted; they were so close to the building that Kim had to shout so that Aubrey would hear her, “They are waiting!” 

Aubrey looked at her confused. It wasn’t something she asked for, why were they here? Was this a party?

Kim opened the door; and the two went inside. The first thing that shocked Aubrey, was the amount of food and drinks on the two tables that were joined together into a bigger one. The loud music was slightly overwhelming. Lucky for her, Kim seemed to notice that and turned the music down. The amount of balloons was astoundingly high, all of them bouncing around.

“Aubrey!” Angel shouted, almost jumping onto her. He smiled, happy to see her.

Mikhael still had his eyes dug into the comic, while Charlene was walking with a colourful bat towards her. Once the giant was close enough to Aubrey, she unveiled a bat, similar to her one but…

All of this was for…

Her?

“For you,” Charlene whispered, her voice was so quiet that Aubrey had to guess what she said. 

The shocked girl took the bat and looked at it from each angle. It was a lot more colourful than the one before. The drawing of multiple swords and yellow lightning was very rough and it looked very makeshift. The lack of any nails made this weapon a lot friendlier.

Aubrey smiled; feeling happy for the first time in a long time.

The loud faces of her friends muting the voice inside her.

~Lost ones, in the void,~

He never felt his heart rushing this much.

He couldn’t think properly, it was his…

His fault…

Charles rushed into the dark alley where they had fought, some construction workers standing by the holes they made.

Well he made.

He wasn’t supposed to.

He failed.

He wanted to scream.

A man in a yellow helmet stood by, blocking his way.

Charles - knowing that the-

The construction worker fell onto the floor, unconscious.

His friends stared at the teen - confused.

He was as well.

Was the bag here?

It was too powerful, they hadn’t even found a tree here.

He is going to get killed.

Confused?

A hand was incoming, another one was rushing him with a hammer.

Charles quickly ran towards them, pushing them away and getting towards where he had teleported because of that goddamn-

It wasn’t here.

Huh.

The fence looked quite fragile.

Not hearing the screams and footsteps behind him, Charles leapt forward.

Wood broke around him, as his Altenium armour was strong enough to let him through the hole.

As suddenly as he came, he left.

Confused.

He had to do something.

Confused.

Chapter Text

“Only theories,” She told him calmly, “Nothing much. The person in question may be a group of people, or a one man army. They have the skills to close and open Rifts. And they are quite fast.” That was not a lot.

<~~~>

“KEL!” Hero shouted, from the corridor. The door to their room closed, as he could hear sobbing coming from the other side.

It wasn’t locked but… it felt as if it was.

“Kel, tell me what happened…” Hero begged, almost banging his fist into the door, “I- I have to know,”

Nothing; only sobs answered him.

“Please,” The older brother felt his knees fall under his weight. “Tell me- I will help and-”

“Didn’t you tell Basil and Aubrey the same thing?” Kel finally replied through the door, “Didn’t you tell the same thing to Sunny?!”

Kel opened the door, his eyes red. He was shaking.

“You say these things and then do nothing to actually do them!” He shouted, pushing his brother into the wall. “Why do you lie?!”

“Kel- I-” Stunned, he tried to explain himself.

“You know you can’t do this!” Kel pointed at him, “Stop saying the same thing over and over again and then just-!”

“I THOUGHT I WAS HELPING!” Hero jumped up, still behind Kel and the wall. “YOU DIDN’T WANT TO LEAVE SO I-”

“So you let me just- stay like you?” Kel asked, not raising his voice. “The air outside of this house is so fresh I missed it,”

“I-” Hero couldn’t even say anything, stuttering under his nose.

“I cried when I saw the Sun,” He stated, tears flowing out of his tired eyes. “They still care, and I can’t believe I have to finish your promises.”

Tears streamed down to the floor. Falling. The house still, with the TV playing in the background. Hero couldn’t even move, but his mouth moved.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” His brother asked the younger one.

“I-” He stuttered, not really…

“I am sorry I just- I thought I was.” Hero apologised, “I- I trusted you to tell me if-”

“Yeah…” Kel stared down at the floor, his voice noticeably strained.

The younger boy approached his brother and hugged him tightly. Hero returned the gesture, even if he felt tears run down his shoulder. Kel felt his eyes distance themselves from reality, shaking, as if they were looking somewhere else.

They stayed like this for a while…

“You still want to go to that party?” Hero left the hug, his hand cleaning his eyes.

“We could go…” Kim shrugged, “May lighten up the mood and well… we could talk to Aubrey and Basil. Set the record straight…”

Hero smiled, and went downstairs. Kel - still feeling weirdly out of it - did the same.

~They have been destroyed.~

Basil and Cris could hear the shouting and music from a couple metres away. The colourful bright lights coming off of the restaurant made it stand out in the silent night that would normally engulf the town.

The two walked next to each other, Basil a bit forward. His movements pulled her, as he was on the line between walking and running.

The girl looked at the pouch that was tied to Basil, the reward they were accidentally given by the mysterious teen. Was it worth it? 

What did it do?

Who was he even?

She looked at the pouch again.

Was it made out of leather or did it just look that way?

Was it even magic, or was there a different reason for this powder working. Maybe it worked in a way that she just couldn’t understand. Maybe the two of them would just… never grasp what it is.

The walk continued in silence, Basil seeming not to care too much about her going with him.

Did he care about her?

And… Why did he care about all of this so much? Was it the fact that this broke his daily routine? Or maybe he was just bored. Like her? It didn’t feel right, there had to be a reason behind all of this, right? A reason that wasn’t just… a fantasy.

The two stood in front of the door to Gino’s. 

Cris, glanced at Basil, who was looking slightly down, and sighed. She opened the door shortly after. The loud music and happy shouts hit them like a stone thrown at their heads. As Cris entered, she noticed a couple of things. 

The air inside was a bit stuffy, probably because of the closed windows. The tables were joined into one bigger table with a lot of food and drinks. The radio was playing a song she had never heard before.

As Cris stood in the middle of the room, Basil - noticing Aubrey talking to Kim on the other side of the room - sat down in the corner, took a pack of chips into his hands and began eating. His hands were slightly shaky, not enough to drop the food. 

Cris approached Charlene and Mikhael who were playing a card game at the other side of Gino’s.

“Can I join?” She asked, while Mikhael was flipping through his entire deck of cards that he held in his hands.

“Sure,” Charlene whispered, “Just let us finish this round.”

~Sharp things will be needed,~

Hero had opened the door for Kel, with the key in hand, he tried to open it as gently as possible. The door was already a bit cracked from their side with a hole in their wall. Its creaking should have alerted him, as the plank of wood suddenly fell down onto the floor.

The two of them stayed silent for a bit, taking in the fact that their house was now almost permanently open.

“Do you think there is Orange Joe there?” Kel asked, leftover tears falling down on the ground.

He walked backwards on the door and looked at his brother who was struggling with putting on his winter gloves and sighing. Kel was more concentrated on the putrid taste that expired Orange Joe had smited up on him.

“Probably no, it is a party for Aubrey, not for you,” Hero responded, happy that he finally put his gloves on. He took the key to the front door, and put it in his pocket.

“Well, that is okay,” Kel sighed, his arms loosening up a bit… He wanted to cry but, he couldn’t.

The walkway was empty, slightly muddy and wet due to the snow that had been there days before. The night was calm. There was barely any wind moving the world around them. The moon was shining at them, the clouds that were there minutes ago had been blown away. Stars could be seen from the planet, some of them were shining in a weird way. It didn’t feel right.

They walked in pure silence. Kel stopped looking at the sky and the horizon, now staring at the empty swings and playground. Maybe he could help people once again, without hurting them back even more. Sadly, he seemed to have-

“You okay Kel?” Hero stammered out, “You want to tell me something else before…”

“Uh- yeah,” Kel didn’t answer, before catching up to his older brother. “Was thinking about this,”

Kel pointed at a small bunch of people with construction helmets looking at a dead end between two houses. It looked like someone had cut through some of the walls multiple times with really strange cuts… they did not look natural.

Two of those people were coming from the left, as they were holding some burnt up wooden planks. The construction workers left the planks there, and then began talking, leaving the planks and the holes alone. The people living in the houses were probably sleeping at this time.

Hero looked at him, then back at the slow as hell construction work, and sighed. The two continued to walk forward. After a couple of steps, they could already hear music and see the stars in the night disappear, replaced by colourful party lights.

Kel wanted to go back home for a second, before remembering that Hero wouldn’t let him.

~Don’t be so defeated.~

Everyone was here: Kim, her best friend that let her live in her own house once the house she lived in burned up and was left in pieces; Kel… as well. Somehow. She didn’t notice him entering, maybe because they were playing UNO.

She won, of course.

Hero, who was like her big brother in a way, wished that she could spend more time with him sometimes, learning about how it is in the real world, not this weird bubble that Faraway was in. 

He wished he saw both of the brothers more. Maybe she didn’t have to push them away…

There were also Charlene, Mikhael, Angel and Cris.

All of them came to support her.

Her friends were still here.

“UNO!” Cris shouted from the background, louder than the music, while Angel was trying to open one of the giant Orange Joe bottles with Kel.

Kim and her taped it up from the inside…

Aubrey chuckled while the lights continued to flicker.

She went towards the front door, and grabbed her new bat. The POW! that was written on it surrounded by swords and pink. It was perfect, it was hers.

She didn’t have to focus, she could just-

Remember.

A single thought of Sunny crossed her mind as she looked at her reflection on the window.

The one thought of the boy made her smile turn, visible in her face that was changing colours. As she thought about him more, time and people seemed to slow down. Aubrey didn’t even know why she cared about him so much. 

He was gone for four years before he came back, and died. Maybe it hurt her that she had forgotten about him for years, and then after Sunny was there again, he decided to take his life away. That was his choice, his.

The sight of his bloody body she found before anyone else appeared in her mind. She wanted to kill herself at that moment. Her eyes would never be happy after that sight.

What could have pushed him over the edge? Was it the fact that he stayed at home for four years? It couldn’t have been Mari since he was still technically alive, breathing, when she was dead. Was it what she said to him? Maybe, but Sunny took his life on the last day; on the day Basil took his eyeball out.

Basil.

She felt eyes, eyes staring at her.

Was it the music? She took her bat and went outside.

Muted questions of her friends didn’t reach her, as the girl closed her eyes and…

In the light, a couple of metres away from the door, was Basil.

Standing, looking at the floor.

Not looking back.

She would not look back.

She remembers.

And she would make sure he remembered too.

Chapter Text

“When should I start?” He asked her, frightened and almost shaking.

“The faster, the better.” She replied as calmly as she normally does, no emotions were visible or readable from her.

<~~~>

Basil left the restaurant. The risk of being seen by Aubrey and her friends was too big. With his bag tied to this belt, he closed the door and breathed the outside air. Its coldness and freshness calmed him down, making him realise how stressed he was in the stuffy room.

Headlamps lit up the walkways, making sure that he could see the world in front of him, but not the one above him. The flower boy, a bit tired, strolled around the closest lamp.

He couldn’t hear the sounds of birds chirping, only some muted shouts from the building nearby and the wind moving his hair. It… was too calm.

The boy tried to focus . Nonetheless, there was nothing that let him do that nearby. The sky was dark, the light above him was fake and blinding. The moon was hidden in a thick layer of clouds. The night was… nothing special.

Basil glanced at his leather bag, and untied it a bit so he could put his hand inside it. The sparkly rainbow dust - glitter - was slightly annoying, as if a lot of tiny spikes were around him, not strong enough to make him bleed or hurt him.

His hands tied into a fist, holding quite a large amount of that weird material. Basil closed his eyes… and…

He wandered into his mind, a black void without anyone or anything in it. A very small layer of water - or a different liquid - calmly waved back and forth. Ripples went through it as he slowly stepped forward. He could see his arms, and the never ending emptiness, but not any sources of…

Light.

A tiny leather pouch materialised from the water below.

He leaned down, and silently, grabbed it.

Basil untied the bag a little, just like he did the second before. The glitter inside was exactly the same.

He took a hand of it, noticing that the bag somehow refilled itself here.

Huh, Basil thought, staring at the…

The colourful crystals flew up from his hand, forming a trail forward. Their colours bounced on the water, reflected by the moving liquid.

Weirdly calm - lacking any depressing thoughts that reminded him of the reality he was living in - the boy began running forward.

The endless void moved behind him, as a string of rainbow rocks pointed him towards a destination he had never been aware of. Its emptiness filled his thoughts, as the timeless place continued to expand.

And then, a weird shape formed in front of him. A shape of a human.

Not ready for it, Basil took a step back, feeling the ripples of water touch his legs. He hadn’t noticed that it had risen, almost touching his knees.

The rocks continued to fly, waiting for him and spinning in circles while showing him that the way to go was to the person in front of him. He would have continued if not for…

A familiar photo album was swimming towards him.

A reminder.

Footsteps.

Basil opened his eyes, and saw that a bat was flying his way.

BANG!

The next few moments felt… less real than the void he had just left. 

An overwhelming pain and loss of balance confirmed that he had been hit. By… a bat?

His head felt… loud. And banging. It was banging, moving, trying to escape.

The pain was getting worse and worse. With each breath, Basil felt as if death had finally decided to go for him. To end his painful life. Was it a blessing?

“ Basi…?! ” He swore he heard Cris… or was it Sunny… Aubrey? The voice left him, his mind still clinging onto this feeling of overwhelming pain.

His hands were wet, his face as well… Why was it… so hard to move?

Something pulled him up…

Footsteps? Shouting… crying? Was he crying?

Where was he?

Why were there spikes in his hand?

Everything felt so… weird.

Was this all a dream…?

Pain. So much pain.

Basil tried to move, his hand firmly in the bag… bag?

He couldn’t. It was…

Tired.

Pain.

…

…

..

.

~ The compass is all, ~

Basil woke up on a wooden surface. He could feel pain shout out from his skull. A cold gust of wind made his eyes open. He was barely able to move his hand to take the tears off his face. Above him, staring back at him, were Cris, Hero and Mincy.

“Basil!” Cris hugged him a bit too tightly. Basil felt his back slightly pulsate, as he hugged her back.

Wanting to stand up, he tried to use his hands to propel himself up. Sadly, his head didn’t let him.

“Don’t stand up yet,” Hero ordered, “I will be back with an ice pack,”

And then the older brother ran away… Basil couldn’t even catch a glimpse of his eyes…

He rolled a bit to the side, noticing that he was on the pier. Mincy was sitting beside him, as Cris went a bit further from the pier, probably waiting for the brother.

The next few teardrops were silent and calming. He was still too confused about what had happened, guessing that he would get to know in a short amount of time. It was… weird. The lack of birds or moon or stars was….

The world - even with trees moving there and back similar to blades of grass - somehow was still. Darker than the void he had gone to before.

The void.

His hands quickly touched different parts of his waist, as he could have a moment of relief. He didn’t want to look if some of the glitter was gone.

“Why did you take me here?” He broke the silence, his voice a lot more rough and tired than he had felt it to be before talking.

“Cris said that you would be calmer here…” Mincy shrugged, staring at something in the lake.

The ice of the lake was cracking.

~ Won’t guide you to a fall! ~

“Was that everyone and everything?” Hero asked, looking at Gino’s and how the place was cleaned up. Even if his mind was on other things at the moment, he couldn’t leave this place a mess as well. 

Mikhael took his comics and drinks back home, Angel took the food, and Charlene helped Kim with cleaning up the whole place. The blackboard was still inside, but it was kind of impossible to take it out without destroying the front door… so it stayed there.

“Yeah, it seems to be cleaner than before the party even started,” Kim answered, looking around and making sure that everything was in place, “That was kind of the agreement though,”

“You signed an agreement for this?” Hero stared at her, happy that Aubrey could find a friend that would go further than them to make her happy.

It wasn’t a high bar per se…

Didn’t you say the same thing to Sunny?

“Not really, I just said that I would clean the place up after the whole thing is finished.” Kim chuckled, walking towards the front door where Hero stood, “The employees are kind of lazy.”

“Mhm,” Hero tried to reciprocate her laughter, his winter jacket reminding him of Basil, “Where are the ice packs?”

“They are in the employees room,” She pointed at the door on the wall opposite to the entrance, “Do you want me to help?”

“Sure,” Hero rushed to the door, pulling the knob open, “It will be faster.”

Kim ran behind him, turning on the light switch that the old man couldn’t find, and opened up the machine with the ice. Hero took the second biggest package of ice, and closed the door down with his shoulders.

A bit of glitter fell down from his winter jacket.

As the two quickly rushed out of their robbery, a man had entered the restaurant.

His messy hair, worried face, weirdly grey and smooth clothes (even though there were some pieces of wooden stuck in them), blue eyes that had a similar hue to Basil, and a belt of weird tools made them feel like they were in danger.

~ See what you didn’t know, ~

He could hear the machine pulsating, its cogs and makeshift structure gathering the dust and shooting it up so fast that they lasered up, opening up the closed connection between the two worlds. The one in cyan hair smiled, this part of his work was almost done.

He looked around, trying to see if anyone was coming. Somehow, no one was here. No one seemed to be chasing him, to be trying to stop his plan. Maybe there was no technology to detect these cuts in reality, or it could be pure incompetence of Signal Space. 

They couldn’t catch him for years, why would they do that now?

Alas, it didn’t matter, as another beam of light shot out from the vertical gun that was his machine.

VWOOM!

The machine roared with the beam of light, its power bending waves and air, piercing and pushing it away. Luckily the boy had headphones, as the sound was so loud it could pierce his eardrums and break them permanently. It wasn’t such a bad idea, but he still planned to listen to his favourite podcasts and music.

He looked at the floating line in the sky; well it wasn’t a line anymore. The rift was now bigger, longer and had actual width. Its purplish-white colour illuminated the floating island he was on, as well as the particles floating through the sky.

The boy was ready to open the connection.

To start his own small Shattering.

~ See what it can show. ~

The Shattering was the event that created the world that we know now, the one we call Riftworld. There are many theories about what had happened, but all of them seem to have one thing in common. The Dimension Gem that held the universe together, was broken; shattered into thousands and thousands of smaller Dimension Gems.

This effect caused the universe to shatter and break, as the small Gems had to somehow divide how big of a universe they could handle. This event also had many other effects that are listed throughout this history book, all of them are theories, as nothing is fully explored. The more Signal Space grows, and our technology develops, the higher the chance of us finally understanding the event that caused the universe to break apart.

And now, we are left with a world in pieces. Riftworld.

Chapter Text

“Where the hell did you go?” Kel asked himself, running through the empty neighbourhood of Faraway. 

He had already scanned the church, Basil’s house and even a bit in the forest. There was no trace of Aubrey. The only sobs Kel could hear were ones of Sunny’s Mother; she looked completely devastated.

Kel almost went to her to comfort her, as she was lying and crying on the floor beside two graves that he knew all too well. The only thing that stopped him is the fact that he made a promise, a promise that he would never want to break. He couldn’t be like his brother. 

Reluctantly, he went away, back into the night.

That sight was glued into his head, like chewing gum in hair. No matter where he went, he was reminded of that cry and sadness. Of that depression that the woman succumbed to. And then, it clicked. Sunny’s house.

The boy began to sprint through Faraway, as he was on the other side of the village. He passed colourful houses, most of their windows dark and closed. He could only spot two or three that were lit up, the people inside probably working or studying for school. Christmas Break would soon end, and they would have to return to school… Well, Hero would probably force him to…

The night sky was growing darker and darker, even if midnight had already passed. A strong wind suddenly hit Kel, as he got closer and closer to the previously abandoned house. Leaves of trees began to fly with the air. The clouds in the sky seemed to be a little lower than before, moving quickly towards somewhere in the forest. Kel didn’t notice these details, as he focused on the dark wretched house that was once full of life.

He quickly got to the front door and opened it up, the door was somehow unlocked. 

Kel rushed into the house, and listened if there were any sobs coming out of the multiple rooms in the house. It was eerily silent. Kel looked around, slowly moving towards the staircase. The kitchen was empty; many dirty dishes could be seen lying around. The living room was also empty, a small - but still visible - layer of dust was clearly on the couches, chairs, table and the old TV. The painting on the wall was slowly losing its hue, as the times it showed were gone forever.

He walked up the stairs, they were in perfectly fine condition. Some of the steps made a quiet creaking sound, making his heart panic a little more than it should.

Kel, now on the top floor, went into the bathroom. It was unlocked and empty, only a couple of basic hygiene products were present. Perplexed and kind of curious, Kel decided to go to Sunny’s room. The door was slightly ajar, its hinges made a loud sound that pierced his ears and made him clench his teeth.

The boy entered the room and was flabbergasted by the state it was in. Even the pillow fort was still there. This room was frozen in static, as if time had ignored this one specific location. The pillows, floor and furniture had more dust than the living room below. The window looked like it hadn't been cleaned in a very long while; Kel could only see a blurry vision of the dark outside world.

He looked through the window, stepping next to the pillow fort and almost breaking it, shattering it into pieces of the forgotten past. Kel could see a blurry image of the (now old) treehouse. The planks that held it up were barely in place, as the structure looked as if it would collapse. Weirdly enough, he could see a dark shade of pink through the window of the wooden house.

Kel, realising who was on the other side, ran down and went outside. The glass door to the outside was closed, but not locked. He quickly pushed it to the side, almost banging it into the wall, and sprinted towards the treehouse.

A continuous and strong wind hit him. Leaves and trash could be seen flying through the skies, as the clouds got darker and darker. The moon was barely visible, its light barely piercing through the shield made of water particles. Kel could feel his hair being thrown to the side, as he kept up pace and ignored the pink paper windmill that just took off from the stump next to him; flying into the abyss above.

Kel - who was now in front of the treehouse - heard its creaking and sobbing coming out of the top. With the wind getting stronger, the ladder that led upwards was being dragged to the side. Kel held onto the ladder, and began to climb up. Lucky for him, the climb wasn’t that difficult as his weight made it harder for the wind to destabilise it.

The crying - previously muffled by the strong wind - was now more apparent and stronger. His hands and legs were gripping onto the ladder as much as possible, the wind not stopping and gathering more leaves.

CREAK! 

The tree that the treehouse stood on suddenly began to turn before quickly coming back to its kind of straight form. A shout inside the treehouse was the aftermath. During all of that, Kel clenched his teeth again and went up the ladder as it was the most straight it could be in a while.

The treehouse looked even more derelict than before they came here three months ago. Some planks of wood seemed to be rotting, while the toys that were left behind were on the right side of the floor. Kel could see Aubrey on the ground, her head buried between her chest and legs. Her back was against the wall, as she kept repeating some incomprehensible words over and over again.

Not really knowing what to do, the boy approached her as silently as possible, trying to not overwhelm the person that had a brand new bat to her side. He squatted next to her, looking at where her face would be if she looked slightly up. And to no one’s surprise, she did.

“K- Kel?” She stuttered out, barely stopping herself from crying. 

Kel stared back at her, he could see her tired sleep-deprived eyes. They were full of tears, as well as full of thoughts and panic. The wind blew again, as the tree informed the humans in the treehouse that they were not in the safest place ever. The one who was on edge, threw themselves at Kel, fearing that the whole structure would collapse.

“I am here,” Kel stated slowly, trying to keep his cool as he thought about the two of them falling down. He hugged her, trying to calm her down. She didn’t cry, staying silent and thinking over what she had done to Basil.

“We have to leave Aubrey, the wind-” Kel tried to say but got cut out by another - louder - sign of the tree breaking. The quick air whistled through the plants, as the tree was looking more and more like a slingshot. The one who was louder than the wind moments ago, came back to their quiet side and nodded.

Stunned at how she regained her composure that quickly (even though Aubrey was still very close to falling apart and crying), Kel glanced around the treehouse to see if there was anything valuable left in this nostalgia filled place. There was one thing that kind of surprised him, a photo taped to the wall.

Probably the one that was missing from the album, Kel thought, taking it with a sad smile on his face. Confused about why the photo was heavier than usual, he turned around and saw something kind of surprising.

“DONT FORGET, IT’S IN THE TOY BOX” was written on the other side, a key taped to the piece of paper. The handwriting looked like it was Basil’s, but as if he was writing this while being panicked or shaky in general.

Kel was brought out of his trance by Aubrey’s scream coming from the outside. Kel put the photo into his pockets and went back to the windy outside. The boy could hear a creak coming from the tree, the wind strengthening again and making a louder sound that would make him frustrated if he stayed here at least a minute longer. Kel stared at the ground down below.

Aubrey was facing him, waiting. Her hair was flying more than his, as if she was being pulled somewhere. The ladder was swung in the same direction, its angle larger than when he had initially climbed on it. The boy tried to find another way down, but there was no. Another creak of the tree pushed him further than fear could, and he made his first step onto the string and vertical wooden staircase.

After putting all of his weight on the ladder, it was slightly more bearable. Even with that fact, Kel was waiting for the best time to go down, as the wind had short intervals during which it blew less. It didn't take him long to jump down from halfway up the ladder.

CRACK! 

Kel and Aubrey glanced behind themselves and saw the treehouse quickly fall to the ground. The two jumped back, dodging the branches and the small explosion of wood. The tree landed on its side, the treehouse shattered in pieces. 

The two teens stood in front of the broken build. Pieces of wood flew up into the sky, as what they had built as children was now gone, some of them caught by the wind. Their hair was flying to the right. Aubrey started to tear up, the water from her eyes dripped down her face before being taken with the wind. Kel just stood in silence, his right hand in his pocket, gripping onto the photo and the key.

  The boy walked back towards the house; the moonlight slowly disappeared from the sky, leaving the world below it dark. Aubrey - scared that she would lose track of Kel - followed him. Her repressed sobs muted by the wind continued. Her mind was overwhelmed with thoughts. Suddenly, Kel took his left hand and held her right arm, making sure that she was here, and that he was with her.

The two walked into the house and turned on its lights. Shortly after, Aubrey closed the glass door to the garden, blocking them from the storm outside.

~Not real, or fake,~

“Do you know what a rift is?” The stranger said, his breaths clearly not stable, as the air outside began whistling.

“Rift?” Hero asked, holding the ice pack. He noticed Kim taking a step back, staring at the gun the person had.

“Yes, like a line in the sky or a bigger hole to-” He began ranting quickly, before taking something akin to a deep sigh and… “You don’t know what the fuck I am talking about.”

Kim and Hero nodded along.

They watched the stranger - who looked slightly older than Kim, but not even close to Hero’s age - sit down on one of the chairs. The music box continued to play the song Kim had heard a long time ago.

“Sit down you two,” He said, looking down at the floor or table, his arms weirdly tense, “I suggest you stay inside for the next few minutes.”

“Why, exactly?” Kim asked, still hiding behind her meat (and ice) shield. The wind was getting stronger in the background, as a couple of leaves were starting to fly by.

“How-” The teen boy choked on something, his voice slightly more depressed than it had been before, “The world is… coming to an end.”

The radio played its song - as silence ensued. The idea - as abstract as it was - made Kim and Hero feel emotions they had never felt before. A big weight dropped onto them, as they both distanced themselves from what was happening.

Messy emotions, messy connection, complicated thoughts, memories, smiles, the days others had died, all of it…

Gone?

“ Lost ones in the void, they have been destroyed, ” The radio played, as the weird boy still couldn’t look straight at them. The wind continued to shriek havoc outside, some bins and trash flying around as it seemingly got darker around them.

“W- what?” Kim stepped closer to the man with weird metal armour, while Hero felt everything collapse on him. “What- why? N- no this must be a joke, why would I-”

“Look outside,” His saddened voice didn’t help to get their morale up, “Have you seen a storm like this before…?”

“This doesn’t make sense.” Hero wanted to shout, but managed to keep his cool for a bit, holding the ice more than before, “Wouldn’t we know more about it? Or just… hear about it somewhere? It can’t be…”

“Some things in life are just- you know- sudden?” The one who told them the news seemed to regret his decision to come here, “And sometimes, you can’t really prepare for them or change anything… because it is too late.”

Didn’t you say the same thing to Sunny?

It was too late.

It was too late.

“How should we know that you? It is just a storm and-” Kim questioned, trying to find some solace or lies in the newfound news.

“If it isn’t true, then you won’t lose anything by staying here for a… couple of moments.” The man replied.

“But if it is true then…” Hero stuttered.

“You can’t do anythin’ about it, this was bound to happen,” He interrupted him, while Kim began taking a drink out of the employee area. “Some worlds just end this way, random.”

The wind was blowing harder and harder, some of the glass crashing and breaking. Chaos ensued, spreading its reach into the restaurant.

“There is a high chance we will be in… a different world soon. Just say your goodbyes to this one while we are here for the next few seconds.”

“ Don’t beli- it’s-  illusion! Don’t lo- in ur ons! ” The radio played in the background, giving its final showing as it began to lose its sounds, white noise breaking some of the words…

CRACK!

~Reality is at stake.~

Basil - bored out of his mind - stared at the picture Mincy made. It was a drawing of the lake, the monument and the ice. The place was eerily calm, as if he didn’t get hit by a bat. Midnight had already passed probably, as the moon was already going down towards the other end of the horizon. 

The ice that was covering the pond bounced moonlight back at them, making a somewhat clear image of the star filled sky above them. The trees around them were static, as no wind could disturb them. 

And still, his mind was focused on the void. On the arrow and the time he had teleported to that strange realm. That endless pond of water, and the person he had seen in his path.

Who was that?

“Hey Crissss,” Basil yawned, his eyes barely open, his head still making sure he couldn’t fully stand up, “Did you feel anything when touching that bag?”

“Nope,” Cris responded in a slightly more energetic voice. Her eyes were glancing at his body, and his head. “You sure you don’t want to go back to sleep?”

“You didn’t get teleported anywhere…?” Basil made sure with his slightly strained voice.

Cris looked at him worryingly and was about to say something when her eyes saw something potentially dangerous. 

CRACK! 

The icy floor of the lake turned into a large black crack. Basil froze, staring at the thing - stunned at the weird black particles rising up from the lake. He wanted to get closer to it, wondering if that is where he was moments ago.

At that exact moment, two things happened. 

Basil felt a strong force holding his back and pulling him back to the land. The second thing was the sound of trees and their leaves moving. The wind seemed to pick up again, but weirdly enough he didn’t feel it.

“Basil!” Cris shouted, “Stand up o-” 

Before she could finish, the black particles turned into black rays of darkness, firing up like the beam that they had seen before, and covering the sky. 

Clouds quickly gathered, blocking out the light that made the night visible to the human eye. The teenagers rushed to the stable ground, as the pier was beginning to fall into the hole that was forming below them. Basil jumped up, and ran forward, holding his banging head with his two hands. Cris pulled Basil, helping him, while Mincy grabbed her notebook and dashed with them, losing her pencil.

Basil felt the ground angle back, as the wood behind him cracked and fell into whatever was at the back. Cris, holding him up more than she realised, took a deep breath and pulled him further and further. Basil, seeing as his sprint was now a series of jumps towards the finish line, jumped to the side. His hands stretched out, ensuring that Cris might be able to help him get up. Lucky for him, that wasn’t needed, as his knees landed on the dirt.

Basil felt his heart racing, his breath barely keeping up, as his legs were a bit wobbly, his head beating out of his skull as well. He sat down on the grassy grounds, turning around to make sure that both Mincy and Cris were fine, that both of them were next to him.

“Basil,” Cris took his attention, speaking barely louder than the ever growing wind, “Look…”

Basil, still on the ground, sat up and saw what they thought was a pond. 

Instead of the familiar water and monument, it was replaced with a deep hole that led down... 

Rays of black light shot up into the sky, spreading and blocking out the light of the moon. 

The stars that were shining moments before, seemed to be gone, the clouds making sure that the dark light was louder than the sky above.

Through the black light - they could see a different world, a different space. 

Before they knew it, the strong wind hit them once again.

Mincy tried to keep her papers inside the notebook, closing it as some of her drawings were lost to the hole that was seemingly sucking them in. The realisation wanted to make him run away and get as far as he could. Sadly, his body froze, staring at what was below the pond.

~Don’t believe, it’s an illusion,~

The teen in cyan hair was looking at the final rift, opened. 

He instantly went to the machine and turned it off, trying to preserve its energy for a backup. He grinned at the work, at the destruction this was about to cause. He couldn’t remember a time without thinking about doing this, and now it was finally done. His plans, calculations, tests, prototypes, heists, everything! It all worked out in the end…

As the purple moons showed themselves, they looked at the abandoned world in intrigue, rather than disgust. They shone brighter than before, as if these rocks were as happy as him. The world would finally be one, one reality instead of two halves. 

All of this was due to him… 

Cyzor. 

He did what no one has ever tried before, and in doing so, Signal Space finally had someone they could fear.

His mind was overwhelmed with thoughts, as the dark particles that filled the atmosphere went up. A colourful nebula of colours that he had never seen before began to form as the four rifts formed a tangled and complex web in the sky.

The sky itself broke down, shattered, showing the world that had been above it forever. The colourful lines stretched and wiggled, played around as they couldn’t hold reality in its place for this moment in time. A white light glowing from below caught his attention.

Cyzor dismantled the contraption that allowed him to do this and put the pieces into his backpack. 

Shortly after, he stared down at the pure white light below. It was shining more than anything he had ever seen. 

Stunned by the sudden glow, the teen jumped back onto where he could hide for the time being. The three moons - and their purple hue - blended in with the ever-growing web of Rifts that formed above him. They began to stretch around him, expanding themselves.

The islands around him, the dust that was the only indicator of time actually passing, the creatures that roamed this place, all of them colourful and bright because of him.

Cyzor never believed that an ending, a new beginning, could be so beautiful.

~Don’t get lost in your delusion!~

The two were sitting on the dusty couch of Sunny’s house. Aubrey was sleeping on the couch, she didn’t really say anything coherent while she was crying and talking to Kel. Kel was sitting on the other side, looking at the photo, the key, and what it could mean.

He could hear the outside world reminding of itself as the wind blew more and more. Some of the windows were already on the floor, the glass shattered, as many of the rooms turned into chaos. Luckily, the living room was somewhat calm and safe.

Kel sighed, and read what was written on the back of the picture. 

“DONT FORGET, IT’S IN THE TOYBOX,” was not only somehow scary, but also seemed like it was a threat. As if the person writing this note was trying not to remind the person actually.

Click! 

A small click from the lock was heard by Kel. He instantly turned around to see the front door opening. He could hear a struggling woman entering the house, huffing and puffing. Concerned that Sunny’s mother would not have the mental strength to talk to them and deal with their problems, Kel started to maniacally shake Aubrey.

Aubrey woke up confused, especially when Kel blocked her mouth and she got to hear a person walking towards them, realising who it was. The two crouched and hid behind the couch, trying not to make any sounds louder than the storm outside.

Not really understanding why Kel would hide, she stood up.

“Aubrey?” The shocked woman said out loud, seeing the girl stare at her from the couch. She was holding the flower she put in Sunny’s grave a couple days ago.

The flower was dead.

Kel did the same, revealing himself to the house owner.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Suzuki…” He waved nervously, holding the photo in his hand.

The woman slowly approached them, put the dead white tulip on the floor, and hugged the two of them very tightly. 

Aubrey felt her tears loosen themselves again, as she began to cry into her. Kel, tightly holding onto the photo, hugged back but - couldn’t feel any warmth or safety in the gesture.

A storm ravaged around the house, as they stood in the centre of the house. 

Clouds moving and spinning around, leaves and stones and plastic and trash going up and down.

Leaves and birds screamed in pain, flowers thrown out of the earth they loved so much.

The three of them didn’t feel a thing, except their own tears and sadness.

~One chance, DON’T MISTAKE,~

“Do you possibly know where this key would fit?” Kel managed to ask, hearing the wind swing at their windows and shriek outside.

The three of them were sitting on the couch, exchanging silent looks and getting scared by the chaos that was happening outside. Kel had been holding the key and photo, but he couldn’t keep thinking about the panicked handwriting and the message out of his head…

What did it mean?

Who was it addressed to…?

Sunny?

Why?

“No…” Sunny’s mother replied, still gathering herself up, her eyes still glancing at the flower in the pot, as if it was alive. “But you can look in the closet,”

Kel stood up, holding the yellow metal object, and sighed. His arms went left and right, trying not to look tense, as he approached the closet. The door seemed more abandoned than the rest of the house.

The wind roared, making itself known even from the inside of the house. It worried him, he had never heard or seen such speeds ever before. Nonetheless, Kel opened the door to the closet.

The door creaked a bit, being pushed towards him as he held the knob. The darkness of the room was darker than the rest of the room. He looked for a light-switch, but was not able to find one. The tiny room looked… older than the rest of the house. Two cobwebs were visible in the corners, some of the bugs still on them.

His eyes adjusted to the darkness, revealing a chest in front of him…

The toy box, Kel thought, walking up to it and seeing a faint rainbow glow coming from it. He used the old key and put it in the hole, as it perfectly matched the lock. He twisted the key, hearing a…

Clank!

…just confirmed the fact that… something was forgotten here.

A broken violin tainted by blood, and blood sheet notes revealed themselves to him. In the centre of the pile of strings and wooden pieces, he saw a very smooth rainbow rock, glowing…

Shocked, Kel couldn’t close his open mouth. He felt his eyelids stretch as he thought about the gift they had given Sunny all those days ago…

What happened?

Why?

These questions would not be answered, as he heard the wind strengthen, and a loud explosion in the background. Colourful rays of light filled his sight, changing places and moving around, the world around him chaotic and unstable… made him shout.

He could see space, dust, the desert, jungles, empty lands, lava, suns, stars, and more in milliseconds. It was everything and anything all at once.

The last thing he saw, before feeling too overwhelmed to think, was the rainbow gemstone, glowing and pulsating.

As if it was trying to talk to him.

~REALITY IS AT STAKE!~

“Tell me!” Cyzor shouted, looking at how everything was breaking apart in front of his eyes, “Someone tell me that this is MY WORK! That this hidden beauty was unveiled by me! That the cores that break apart, that the islands that split in half, that the cracks in space and time are my! The sky is breaking apart, into pieces, less than the halves; but soon they will be one, finally one! Tell me, am I a saviour or a villain, if I do good only for myself and for others, in the long run! Tell me, someone tell me, that I am more worthy than you of being the strongest, of looking at how the sky shatters!”

The sky was breaking into pieces, time was losing sense, as loud cracks accompanied the chaos. The boy just stood, one step and one push away from death itself, crying and losing his mind. The auroras cut through everything, light and what he perceived started to lose sense. Cyzor continued to look at his own creation, not knowing what the repercussions would be, or if it all worked.

It was all so overwhelming.

“Riftworld will be mine! Mine! This is just the first one to fall, to break, to be fixed! The night will be day for me, as no stars will help the ones that need them! Signal Space will pay for not letting me in, for my genius to be thrown away! Come on, planets and humanoids, stars and gods, fight me as much as you won’t and you will not defeat me! Fight me right now! Stop me if you can! Stop the destroyer, stop the villain in your eyes!”

The sky - or what he could call the sky moments ago - looked like a giant nebula. As if purple stars exploded into each other, making a colourful area of shiny auroras, stars, planets and particles. It looked like a galaxy was forming. Cyzor felt his tears rise up towards the hole in the sky that was forming above him.

The hole continued to envelop the world.

His mind, his world, this world turned to chaos. Matter collapsing in on each other, his eyes seeing parts of the second half he merged.

It looked wonderful, and nothing like he had seen before.

He could see his arms change a little, the black sky changing colours and showing planets or the empty sky. So much of it was… empty… but more alive than the barren wasteland he got rid of.

“I am the god of this world, God of the UnderVoid!” He laughed maniacally, as everything broke down in front and around him. 

It had all gone to plan.

And yet, it felt like he didn’t plan enough.

~~~

“The end is the beginning, and the beginning is the end.”

- Thomas Stearns Eliot

~~~

Sunny felt breathing… his own breaths escaping his lungs.

He was alive.

Chapter Text

“That day- was…” She paused for a second, trying to describe it to him, “It was- It still is… It frightens me,”

“We don’t have to talk about it-” The boy hugged her, his voice very quiet and… unused, “I know it is-”

“Have you ever felt like… you saw everything and everywhere in a blink of an eye.” She reminisced, holding onto him tightly. “I could see deserts, space, dust, people, stars, and everything in between in… moments.”

He didn’t say anything, letting her cry, she needed it more than he did right now.

“Imagine seeing and knowing every single perspective at the same time all the time for even a moment, without anyone to tell you that- that this was going to happen. No one prepared us for… this. It was a storm and then it just… ended.” She could feel her tears drop onto the wooden building she had been living in for months…

Months…

“You can stop,” The boy held her tighter, nuzzling into a little, whispering, “Really, I-”

“You don’t know,” She didn’t let him go, “Let me finish,”

The world outside didn’t disturb them in this moment of solace they needed, he wanted to cry himself, but hearing someone else do the same somehow was… comforting.

He didn’t want to think about anything else than the present moment he was in right now.

“And then, after glancing and feeling those places, everything turns silent.” She cried a bit saying that, not even remembering that this had caused so much pain, “Everything turns into silence and this uneasy feeling that something is wrong , and before you realise what had just happened , you think about those experiences that had just teased you and I- and nothing answers!”

He gently played with her hair, reminding her that she could take a break…

“And that void after this… after this moment of complete loss of control, I hadn’t even realised that the world had ended and that I lost everything and everyone that I knew… well mostly… except Kel and…” She choked on her words, more tears falling out.

“I know…” His empty and emotionless voice quietly confirmed, “You told me…”

“I am scared,” Aubrey glanced at his face, seeing his…

~~~

Kel felt a pounding headache. He didn’t open his eyes, or move, or feel. Something just… hurt

The boy felt different - weird, as if he had died moments before. The air he was breathing was heavier, less calming. He could feel a weight on him, forcing him to stay on the cold wooden ground that was the floor. It didn’t take him a long while to see the light of the world outside.

The second he saw where he was, Kel remembered what happened. The sudden crack, the shouts, screams and everything. Everything was too much… He didn’t and couldn’t remember too much about it without feeling overwhelmed like… his mind exploding and everything breaking down.

The boy pulled himself up from the floor, seeing that his head was slammed against the toybox he had just opened.

A rainbow stone was glowing, giving the place light it desperately needed. The glow seemed to be stronger than it was before…

Perplexed - feeling his eyes still wanting to close a little - the boy put his hand into the broken pieces of the violin. He felt the old blood on the paper sheets, and the strings that entangled the ruined instrument. His thoughts still wandering somewhere else, he felt a different texture than the other ones.

His eyes glanced inside the box, seeing that his hand was wrapped around the glowing rock. Kel pulled his hand out of the broken toybox, and closed it. Grey dust flew onto his clothes, making him cough a bit.

The boy turned around, and saw that the door behind him was off its hinges. Broken. The wall visible from the closet was cracked, as the outside world seemed somewhat lighter than before. He could say that it was even more colourful.

Did I fall asleep? Kel massaged his head, holding the very smooth rainbow rock in his left hand.

His hand touched the frame of the door lightly, as he noticed broken planks of wood and holes in the roof above him. A weird dust seemed to be slowly raining…? His heart began to race more, as he saw that the couch was completely empty, and that everything was on the floor. Paintings, the TV, the chairs, the windows and parts of the roof itself were sleeping on the cold ground.

Some of the walls looked like they were barely stable, as though this place had been built twenty or thirty years ago without any renovations or effort to keep it up.

He held onto the rock tighter, glancing left and right, trying to find Aubrey and Sunny’s Mother.

Oh god, oh no, wher- He felt himself panicking, the stairs up were broken, impossible to physically climb without trying pushing a pile of debris out of the way.

The door to the garden was completely broken, while the trees and fencing around it was lying on the ground or completely gone. Some parts of the garden were uncannily alike to the thing it had been in the past… some of the trees felt wrong, as if they were rotated or twisted the wrong way.

And there, he noticed the sky.

A giant nebula - a giant colourful storm - was spinning above him. It’s eye dark, with every colour around it, spinning towards the black hole. The lights were almost as vivid as the sun, as they probably would have been lighter if not for that dust going down towards the ground. Some stars seemed to be falling from the beautiful thing that had happened. The cloudless black sky contrasted with the rainbow chaos above… was somehow perfect.

The boy glanced at the rock in his hand, it was glowing with similar colours to the storm above him. He knelt down on the wooden floor and put the perfectly shaped rainbow crystal so that it would fit perfectly in the dark eye.

“Is that your home?” Kel asked his new pet rock. The rainbow colour turned a bit less bright for a second, before shining more than before…

The teen smiled.

And his smile quickly turned into a frown as he remembered why his heart was racing.

He made his way over to the opened front door. The world in front of him was gone. Only the concrete pathway that Aubrey and Adra sat on stood. They seemed to be frozen… on the edge, as grey dust fell onto their hair. Adra seemed to have been holding something.

And Kel stood there, realising that Faraway was gone.

He only saw empty space, tiny islands of grey rock floating around them, above and below.

And how frightening it looked.

~~~

“Basil!” She heard a shout before she actually woke up.

“Cris?!” Another name followed. 

Her mind slowly turned on, acknowledging the cold dirty floor she was presumably laying on. Her eyes began to open up, giving her the ability to see a rainbow storm above some weird looking trees. The wind was gone, leaving the tree leaves static. There was no ambiance in the background, it felt like the world around her stopped.

And yet, that thing above her in the sky was spinning. Stars falling off of it onto the ground below…

“Cris!” She heard someone shout from her left. 

The shout of her name was followed by quick steps towards her. The swimmer stood up, realising how dusty and cold the stone floor actually was. She turned towards those steps, and saw Mincy. The girl was clearly spooked by something, her arms and eyes shaking like she had never seen them before. She could still her subtleties, even if the forest…?

Forest? Weren’t they next to the pier before?

Everything.

Oh god…

Her breath, was it okay?

Everything.

She couldn’t keep thinking, no she had to be… it wasn’t real.

It just wasn’t real.

…was somewhat darker than before.

“Mincy?” Cris rushed to her, holding her so that she could calm a little. Her veins told Cris how fast her heart was racing. “You? Where? You alright?” Her words turned from one into the other, her breaths also not in the best condition.

“I- I don’t know,” Mincy managed to huff out. 

Cris’ eyes began to shake as well, an uneasy feeling built up in her stomach as she began looking around. Everywhere was dark, she couldn’t see the hole, the pond, the monument, the pier, or Basil. It was all trees that were growing from the grassless floor.

Basil…

Where was he?

Cris spun around, staring at the dark silhouettes of these unnatural trees she had never seen before. Their branches were a bit too long, the lack of leaves didn’t make them less creepy. She tried to calm herself down by taking a deep breath but…

The air felt different, it was slightly heavier than she remembered it being. 

She gulped, wanting to say something, before looking back at Mincy and realising how clueless they both felt. All of this felt like a dream… she had to wake up… right? She took a step.

Her boots made a sound as if they were walking on a gravelly surface, not a full rock. The ground below seemed to have been covered in a layer of dust… that seemed to be falling from the sky. If the girl squinted her eyes, she could see that the tree crowns and branches were also covered with a similar grey layer.

The nebula above them seemed to be the only source of colour left.

“This is just a- a- dream…” Cris stuttered, “Right?”

“Yeah, it-” Mincy nodded along, still hearing panic, “it is.”

Mincy took a look around, before breaking the silence that kind of- made this eerie place even more frightening.

“Did you see Basil?” Cris asked her friend as calmly as she could.

Mincy nodded no, before looking to the ground and beginning to feel her legs turning into jelly.

“We have to get going and find Basil,” Cris held her up, not wanting her to fall down onto that cold surface. 

She was barely able to see her glasses and her eyes. The two teens walked close to each other, their breaths bouncing away the dust, and their muscles tightened to a degree they had not felt ever before. The ravaging storm above them shined eerily, the light not being able to pass some of the tops of these trees.

The two walked in silence for a while, their footsteps contrasting the uneasy silence of the place, as it seemed completely dead and devoid of any other life forms other than them and the trees. The both of them wandered in a random direction, uncertain where it would lead them.

~~~

Kim now knew how Aubrey felt when she said that she was… overwhelmed.

She had never even…

Her head wanted to escape the skull, pulsating in pain. Her headache caused all of her coherent thoughts to be somewhat…

Futile…

Where was she?

Pain.

Everything.

So many things, so many places…

Were they real?

She felt a cold concrete floor touch her back, as she kept her eyelids tightly close to each other. Her hands regaining some of their energy - just lead her to pull her hair in an attempt to stop the headache.

Feeling some of the pain subsided as she continued to push her hair out of her skull. She forced her eyes open, seeing that she was lying on the tiled floor of a once beloved restaurant. The glass around it was completely broken, the roof had a giant concrete hole in the middle.

Tables and chairs were broken and scattered around. Some of them seemed to be gone. She could see the stranger sleeping on the ground, but Hero was gone.

She decided to leave the person alone, as he seemed to be sleeping quite soundly…

Through the hole, she could notice rainbow lights coming out of it… and weird dust that was gathering up. She thought of it as weird, mostly due to the fact that it seemed a bit less transparent and more solid than the dust she had seen in Aubrey’s room.

And then, a realisation hit her…

She stared through the empty window frames, seeing nothing but grey floating islands far, far away. They seemed to have taken shapes of rough cones, as they were made from a stone-looking material. Some of them were floating above them, others below…

The girl took a glance up, taking in everything.

She wanted to scream… just seeing that… again. Was…

A storm ravaged above her. A colourful beautiful chaotic madness spun around as it shot something similar to fireballs towards what they called below… as the ground seemed to have ceased to exist.

The ground… is gone?

The beauty and scale of the shining sky didn’t take her mind off of the things too much, making the girl walk up to the edge of the restaurant’s walls to try to find…

Home…

Her eyes only caught a couple of miniscule floating islands…

Was this the end of the world? She asked herself, not wanting to answer that question.

Not ready to give up so easily, Kim took one of the tables, and pulled them below the hole. The rainbow lights partied and danced around, as she grunted and sweated to put a chair on the table.

Happy enough with her structure, she climbed it up and jumped to the roof.

She took a deep breath, being on the flat roof of the pizzeria and…

A silhouette of Hero was sitting on the side of Gino’s, staring at the void in front of him that was supposed to be his hometown. He was… crying…

Not really thinking why she couldn’t have heard that… Kim slowly approached the adult. Her footsteps were muted by his sobs. The rainbow lights above, sucked by the hole in the middle, shone at both of them and both of them only.

“...” She quietly sat on the deadly edge next to him. She couldn’t cry.

She felt pain… her head began to think of that one moment in time. She thought of her home, Aubrey, her friends and family, the party and school, the memories.

Nothing.

No tears filled her eyes, no shaking in her arms.

She just stared…

“Kim?” The sobbing man realised the girl next to him.

“Yes, it’s me…” She sighed, sadness clearly in her voice.

“Is this real…?” He asked for comfort, feeling too overwhelmed to think about anything else.

“I guess it is…” Kim replied - not forcing herself to feel anything anymore… at least not now, “The end of the world… huh… Didn’t think it would look like this…”

Chapter Text

“What did you think it would look like?” His voice somehow showed his sadness, even if he couldn’t see his face.

“I- I didn’t really think about it too much,” She swung her legs, staring at the void in front of them. She was a little too scared to look at Hero himself.

“Well- I thought we would have… died?” Hero stuttered, his voice quickly losing its emotion.

“It was…” She thought about what she actually wanted to say, “Yeah…”

The islands in front of them floated in silence. The dust from above falling onto their heads as they were still in the process of comprehending what had just happened.

They even forgot that they were sitting in Gino’s… well a ruined version of the restaurant at least.

“Do you think that… we can return?” Kim broke this silence, the weight of the situation beginning to hit her repeatedly. 

He responded with his arms tightening, hiding his face in his arms; trying to ignore the nagging answer to the question.

“Maybe,” A somewhat now familiar voice spooked both of them, leading Hero to almost jump off the ceiling.

Kim turned around to see the boy sit down in between them, squeezing himself a little, before staring at the void with a slight smile on his face.

“Not all is lost… hopefully.” He continued, realising that they were awaiting some more concrete information.

Hero - whose eyes were red, his right arm seeming a bit red - stared at the younger person. His legs were shaking a bit too much. Kim glanced at her legs, making sure that they are more stable than his.

Looking down, she saw how… there was nothing below… even the tiny islands that seemed on their sides and above them, weren’t below.

“How- How?” Hero pointed at the emptiness and dust surrounding them, his voice cracking.

Kim turned around, moving herself a bit further back from the edge, and pointed her eyes up at the glowing nebula above them.

“Well, this was caused by the opening of Rifts, without closing them.” The teen explained, walking around in circles but not making eye contact with them. “If we close those rifts, there is a chance that the world will return back to normal.”

“Is that… like time travel?” Hero questioned the logical conclusion of the only person that seemed to know what had happened. Kim listened to the conversation, her mind wandering around, not really keen on staying on one thought for too long.

“Not…” He stopped for a second, his tiny smile turning a bit before he gave his real answer, “Yes,”

Kim turned her head a bit - something that went unnoticed by the two other people next to her - and finally stood up. Once she did, she realised how cold it was. She hadn’t felt herself shivering until now. While Hero and the teen had a staring contest, she jumped down onto the platform she made below to get back to the restaurant.

Her hunger helped her cope a bit - Kim went into the kitchen and saw that there were some things left - like pizza dough, cheese and tomatoes - in the storage area. 

“Kim?” Hero’s voice could be heard from above, “We are going,”

“Can’t you guys wait a bit?” She asked, holding some of the dough in her hand and bringing it to the ovens. “I am kind of hungry,”

She could hear a groan, and whispering, while she tried to bake something that would be good. She heard two pairs of footsteps approaching her. She rolled her eyes, trying not to look towards the void.

“We have to go,” Hero placed his hand on her shoulder, staring at the other teen looking at the broken vending machine and taking a water bottle out of the broken glass. “Charles said we can’t waste time,”

It put her off that Hero’s sad face still lingered on, but his voice didn’t reflect any of that.

If the dust could think, it would know it was being stared at.

Everything…

Was that how she felt?

“How do we leave this place?” Kim eyed him, not really convinced about their current predicament, “We are in the middle of fucking nowhere.”

“He said-” Hero wanted to explain but didn’t get the chance to.

“Can you help me with making this pizza?” Kim turned back, her eyebrows loosening to their normal position.

“...” The guy took a long sigh, looking over to Charles who shrugged and jumped back up. “Sure…”

~~~

The world has ended…

Everything he had worked for…

All those years and all of that happiness that he had…

Were gone.

And now he was eating pizza in the middle of a ruined and floating restaurant with a girl he barely knew.

The pepperoni pizza they made was quite good, but the awkwardness of them talking hadn’t really changed a lot. He had stopped crying, even if some of the past memories still brought him a lot of sadness. The indescribable feeling of everything falling down at a single moment was… so hard to grasp that he couldn’t really feel it. At least not consciously.

He was sitting in front of Kim, who was still eating her pizza while ignoring the void that was probably disturbing her. She asked him to be the one covering it though. It made logical sense.

He wished that more things were logical.

Hero couldn’t cry or sob anymore, it felt as if his water reserves in his body had run out. A condition that someone back at his college would call, dehydration.

The person that introduced himself as Charles, an 18 year old boy that looked stronger and healthier than him, was nowhere to be found, while they were awaiting him to return. Or get them out of this place. He wanted to run away from this place as much as possible.

Hero turned his head, trying to find a place-

“Something’s wrong over there?” Kim looked over to see the black void. 

Her hand, that was holding the pizza, stuffed it into her mouth before she began ignoring the black emptiness once again. It wasn’t too empty, Hero could spot a couple of floating pieces of rock in the distance, telling him that gravity was also a force of nature that doesn’t matter here.

He at least expected that what he would learn from college or school would help him here. But alas.

“No,” Hero returned to eyeing the second slice of pizza that was on his plate, untouched. “Just… thinking about… nevermind…”

Hero could feel his eyes begin to water again, blocking the impending flood with his hands so that Kim wouldn’t have to see him cry again… and again… and again.

Would this dehydrate him?

The man heard a plate move. Opening his eyes a bit, he saw that the plate with pizza was gone, put on Kim’s side.

“Don’t wet the pizza,” Kim stated. Was her voice blank, or so full of emotion that he couldn’t put logic into it? There wasn’t a smirk, was it a joke?

He couldn’t hear himself crying, but his tears were colder than ice.

The cold. It was so cold. Had he noticed that before? Or was it just an emotion? It was something he felt…

Everything.

That was the feeling.

“I will leave you the last piece,” Kim pushed the plate towards his left arm, bumping it a bit, before leaving and going somewhere.

He could only nod, before continuing his hourly ritual.

~That crystal… it saved my life… a useless life…~

The pizza was cold. He had taken a bite of it, and it was still somewhat good, but not as good as he had expected it to be. The previous slice was a lot better. Hero, feeling his stained sleeves, he rolled them back a little exposing more of his bare skin to the cold and dustier atmosphere of the place.

He could feel that his movements were a lot more sluggish than before, not only due to the sleep deprivation that he was going through right now - insomnia, he guessed - but also the crying may have caused his eyes to redden and his body to lose a bunch of water.

Luckily, there were a couple of water bottles on the floor. His clouded mind took the plastic container, spinning the cap off and letting some of that liquid into his mouth.

The second he got the hang of the world around him again, Hero remembered about-

He calmly walked towards Kim, who was swinging her legs while sitting on the edge of the broken door frame. Her arms behind her, holding onto the concrete floor. She swayed calmly, left and right, bouncing the dust falling from the sky further away from her.

Making his footsteps a bit louder, so that she wouldn’t freak out, he approached her calmly. His stuffy nose - that naturally occurs after crying a lot - also alerted her.

“Do you want to live here?” Kim questioned him, not wanting to make eye contact, looking as if she was talking to herself?

“I-” Hero stuttered on that answer for a bit, before his mouth decided to continue answering in sound waves, “I don’t Kim. I’ve lost everything. We lost everything.”

Silence ensued. He even would have counted the seconds, minutes, moments, if there was a clock that could accurately predict time. The only thing that wasn’t static, seemed to be them, the dust, and the colourful light show above. It looked like a storm, similar to a Milky Way.

“No,” Kim broke stasis, “We still have ourselves, right?”

“Right.” He replied in a voice that he could describe as giving off sadness.

The college student sat next to her, sliding in the large space that was on her right. His legs were completely still, floating in the infinite empty space below them.

“How far do you think this void goes?” She asked casually, not even reacting to him sitting down.

Hero saw the void below him, the endless void till he would hit another floating island… probably. Death.

He had seen people die in front of him, around him, and in the background of the hospital walls.

With the combination of a hanging corpse…

“Far... very far...” He answered truthfully, before trying to let go. His arms tightened up, instead of loosening, fear of the deep dark below overtook his mentally ill mind and…

“You will leave me alone with that guy?” Kim continued asking, her voice talking with slightly more emotion than before. An emotion that could be described by his peers as… fear.

“No,” He retorted, still focusing on the void, his arms annoyingly pulling him back while he was pushing forward. “I don’t.”

“Why do you want to jump?” Her voice was more spiteful this time, “Didn't think you would be the one to give up this quickly; I guess it matches up with what Aubrey told me about you...”

“AND?!” He shouted back, wanting to cross that gap towards his end. It was so close, “Don’t you feel the same way?! That everything is-”

“I do,” Kim replied quietly this time, her voice merely a whisper.

Kim’s grip, that was holding onto his right arm the entire time, let go.

And with it, he rocketed upwards and forwards. The entire weight of his body was thrown towards the ending of his life.

The college student, screaming, turned around and tried to grab the ground again, too scared to die, too scared to…

Fall…

He felt a hand hold his entire body weight, and a grunt of a younger girl as she held him up.

Hero swung on her arm for a short time before gripping his hands against the concrete. He didn’t look down, he couldn’t. Kim helped him get up, as the two were close to falling off into the endless black hole that was the below.

Moments passed before he felt the cold and grey-filled floor again. His heart was beating faster than during his final exams, his breath was similar to ones that happen during panic attacks, he wished these things would only stay in the textbooks of his college.

“I do feel the same way…” Kim sat next to him, her back against the door frame. “But, It doesn’t mean that it is the end… for us at least.”

“And what the hell will we do here?” Hero huffed, still out of breath.

“We will go with Charles, and try to fix the world… maybe,” She shrugged, and stood up, “We can probably help him.”

“What if we can’t fix the world?” The oldest one still felt like this… wasn’t right. “He doesn’t seem the most competent.”

“We can die then,” She sighed, her eyes looking down at the void for the first time, "But we have to at least try to get things back to normal."

They entered the restaurant, leaving the void behind, not feeling the cold as much as they had felt it before.

The two of them suddenly heard a part of the ceiling explode somewhere nearby, as someone had jumped onto the restaurant roof a bit too hard.

~Originally, I thought it was a curse…~

Charles was staring at the fire, inspecting it and making sure it would stay up for long enough. It seemed to be a bit stronger than it was supposed to be at this amount of Gems used, like every other fire he had started here. This was the fourth fire, and the last one for now, as this cursed parkour to nowhere would finally have an ending destination. Tall buildings were covering up the void, even if it was still foggy from here.

His rebellious streak to break every Signal Space rule he could, continued, as he wanted to approach this mysterious place alone. It was probably a city from the… world that had just disappeared in front of him. He didn’t know if that would have long lasting effects on his health, as he thought that he was going to die.

Nonetheless, the thought of looking at this place was enticing. And he shouldn’t go there with those two Manos without actually knowing if that place would instantly kill them. 

He doubted that, but it was still worth checking. Charles took a couple steps back and sprinted forward. He jumped off the edge, sliding some tiny rocks, gravel and dust off the rocky floor the warm but fake colourful fire was burning on. The teen landed on the closest floating island, and took a large leap once he got to the edge.

With every jump, he could see more and more details. The buildings he saw were in fact a part of a city. Some of them were dilapidated, others in pieces. The skyscrapers that should have been holding themselves up, seemed to have broken windows and some of  them were lying like domino pieces.

He could see a tiny tower sitting on one of the taller skyscrapers, making it the tallest spot in the city. It was barely visible, but somehow still held on. Maybe it was its pyramid structure.

It only took him six minutes, and a couple of well-timed jumps, to get to the city. It was massive. 

The whole place instantly tripled the grim and uncannily dead atmosphere that this entire dimension had. He couldn’t see any traces of recent Manos, similar to his peers, no footsteps in the dust. The skyscrapers were full of glass shards, broken equipment and furniture - as well as decorations. Most of them had their tops fall off, as the shaking and suddenness of the merge was probably too much to handle for them. 

The roads were cracked and the ground empty. Grass was replaced by the same stone that is everywhere. The trees that formed the greenery of this place, had disappeared, or were dead. Their leaves gathering dust.

A shadow of its former self.

The bricks, stones and walls of these places were cracked. If there was enough wind, the city would probably fall to the ground, at least most of it. The rods of metal that probably were standing up before, as he had seen them in the town village he was at, were on the floor. The whole place was silent and grey, the dust particles falling onto the skyscrapers and roofs, resting… 

The nebula above continued to spin around in circles, rocks falling off of it. Making the grey tones of this place a bit more colourful.

The teen walked around very carefully and cautiously. Staring at the floor around him, trying to spot any footsteps. He went towards the leftover cars that were lying around like toys made of plastic or Altenium. The cars themselves were abandoned… Even if some included passengers he couldn’t save anymore. Their polish and paint slowly losing its colour, like the houses and their roofs. The logos of unknown companies to him were on the floor, dug into the ground similar to the floors of skyscrapers that seemed to block the roads ahead…

There was nothing, but silence and death…

The more he looked, the more bodies he saw…

And…

Charles began to run back as fast as he possibly could.

~...but now, I realise that I was wrong. It was luck…~

“So,” Hero roughly repeated what he had just heard from Charles. The three of them were standing on the roof, looking over at the islands in front of them, one of them had a fire burning on it. “You found remnants of a city.“

The three of them were also standing by a tiny rainbow fire Charles had made. It was quite warm compared to the air around them.

“Yes,” Charles nodded along, spinning around as if he was trying to find something, “I did.”

“And… how exactly do we get there?” Kim took a step towards the edge once again, not really seeing a way forward, “Does your magic allow for that?” 

“You mean these things?” He took his hand out of a leather bag, with a purple rock. The rock looked like a diamond, its shine similar to the one spinning above them. “These are Gems,”

He spun the Gem around on his fingertip before putting it back into a pouch attached to his belt. After that, Charles took out a weird tool that looked like a fusion between a gun and a vacuum. 

He held the trigger and aimed at the ground where the fire was. The fire instantly stopped as small bits and pieces of the Gems went into the vacuum. The cold and unwelcoming air of the place made itself more clear than it was before. Beginning to freeze the sleepy bunch once again.

“Time for your first lesson,” Charles pointed at the fire that was at the edge of their vision. The teen had a tiny grin on his face while he heard some footsteps moving away from the edge.

Chapter Text

Sunny.

Sunny felt something…

It was wrong.

Was this the afterlife?

Did it really exist?

He opened his eyes to see that he was in his body.

As if nothing had happened to it - except the long 4 years of pain and suffering and starvation and d…

Why was he here? 

He died. 

He jumped. 

He failed them and Mari. 

And now he could still feel and think. 

The boy opened his eyes. A world of colourful madness that bordered on flashing lights welcomed him. The floor had a metallic texture, and the colours weren’t blending in, even if the patterns were all seemingly random. There was a feeling of something connecting them.

An internal thought.

He had many of these.

Sunny - whoever he was at this moment - stood up. Drops of a liquid more transparent than water fell from him; even though he wasn’t wet.

The place was completely empty, as if he was the first person here. 

He couldn’t see the edges… Was this black space and white space merged together? 

He wouldn’t answer that question, since it didn’t take long for him to fall onto the ground and cry.

He could have stayed alive, couldn’t he?

~~~

Sunny.

Sunny days were gone as well.

She couldn’t believe that this wasn’t a hallucination. That her legs could somehow float while she sat on the most unstable piece of road in the history of humanity itself. Everything felt like a blur. The dust that reminded her of the snowstorm days ago, the pot that she put on her friend’s grave next to her.

Adra - the woman had whispered her name - was silently sitting like her, moving as much as the average statue. The emptiness in her eyes could be compared to the state of the world around them. As they were in a house, floating in the middle of nowhere.

She glanced at the dead flower she had stolen from Basil that night. It was the right thing to do, she felt. Basil had so many flowers, so many of them were beautiful… he probably didn’t notice that she took just one.

Sadly, it died.

Like everything else she touched.

Adra still kept it tightly in her hand, the dead flower would be crying if it could.

Footsteps from behind made it clear that Kel was with them in the house. A rainbow glow reflected itself onto the grey and dirty concrete. It was filled with that goddamn dust.

“Is that what’s left?” He asked, his voice breaking as he spoke. Adra ignored it, not even flinching.

The rainbow shimmer grew a bit stronger for a second, before returning to its normal colour. She tried to be…

Nothing.

At the moment. But she couldn’t stay stagnant…

Everything else was so quiet, so cold and out of place. She wished that it had stayed the way it was.

The complex world that she knew, the world full of sounds she had to force out.

And right now, Aubrey got what she wanted. A world without those things.

Only she, Kel and what was left of Sunny.

Somehow, she still couldn’t feel…

Happy.

She could hear Kel sit next to her, on the side of the concrete rectangle that looked as if it was about to fall into the void.

Aubrey didn’t know why it was stable.

“What happened?” Kel questioned her, a worry in his voice, one she couldn’t help remove. She couldn’t just get rid of it, like she did with herself.

“Do you think I know?” She replied, too many emotions fuming out of her.

Why was she angry?

Was this just… a dream?

“Probably a dream,” Her monologue finished with her speaking out loud. A tiny bit louder than she wanted to.

The rainbow glow that was somehow coming from her side, turned dim, before coming back to its former stagnant state.

Why was everything frozen in here?

“It isn’t.” Kel huffed and stood up, “Come on, we have to go,”

His voice almost made her stand up and go with him. But she didn’t. She decided to stay with Adra, on the cold floor, while dust greyed out their hair.

“What would happen if I jumped?” Aubrey whispered, loudly enough for everyone to hear it.

Everyone that seemed to be alive at least.

“No,” She felt someone pull her shirt back, “We aren’t even thinking about that,”

“I wasn’t planning to!” Aubrey shouted again, her arms began shaking a little more than she would like to when she noticed that her fury still filled her…

Even if there was nothing to be sad about.

“I can make some tea…” Adra said her first words to them since the incident. 

She stood up, and left them alone on the concrete pathway, entering the house once more while she held onto the plant. Kel sat down next to Aubrey, his feet quickly began moving there and back like hers. Their rhythm wasn’t the same.

“You sure…?” Kel asked her, his left hand occupied with the rainbow stone.

“What is that?” Her finger put focus on the source of the rainbow shimmer.

“I don’t know what that is yet,” Kel shrugged, “We should go back, there is no reason to stay here,”

“Is it worth going back to the house?” She was eyeing the multiple floating piles of rocks in the background of the infinite void around them.

“It will be warmer than here, I am sure,” He stood up once again, walking a few steps back before waiting for her.

She wasn’t sure if she should jump, or go.

~~~

“Thanks,” Aubrey whispered as she took a sip of the warm tea in one of the few mugs that weren’t in pieces.

She and Kel were also in the kitchen, drinking their own beverages and making the quiet atmosphere a bit louder than it normally would be. The grey snow outside reminded her of the snowstorm she was driving a few days…

Ago…

This place felt surreal, even if she liked the snow.

She hoped that there was some food left in the fridge… She couldn’t check it right now because of the fact it was face down like Sunny’s-

A single tear filled with some of the salt that was left in her body, fell into her tea. The smoke swirling around the cup seemed a lot warmer than she actually was. As they sat around in dark silence, the only colours coming off of Kel’s rock and the nebula above, this moment was more comforting than she probably wanted it to be.

Kel was sitting on the wooden chair next to her. His eyes were red, not redder than her’s or Aubrey’s but the colour was still vivid enough to remind her of the-

A sigh was let out from her mouth, circling and looping back to the same thoughts over and over and over and over…

“Where do we go from here?” Kel threw in the basketball hope like he did as a child, he hadn’t changed that much. 

The ball went through the hoop of existential dread, leaving all of them in silence once again. The almost abandoned kitchen with its old pans and kitchen utensils as well as mugs and shelves filled with spider webs, turned silent for a minute.

A long sigh escaped Adra, its shakiness hopefully not detected by the two children around her. She took another glance out of the window, trying to make sure that she was actually real and that this was… happening. At least the tea was warm… made out of what was probably left out of their electricity.

The woman quickly looked up, wanting to see the colourful madness above them. It was shining brightly at them, as if it wanted to say that everything was going to be okay. As if this was the only way to get back to their past. If she could, she would have loved to fly up there.

She hoped Sunny would be able to.

Looking at them from the angelic lands of heaven.

Wherever they were right now.

Her sight of the storm outside was broken by the three purple planets far in the distance. They seemed to have been shattered, as large pieces of purple rock were somehow cut away. As if something had cut open the planets.

Another thing that she couldn’t understand.

That fact changed nothing.

But, a different fact did.

The woman - returning to her cup of tea - hearing sips and whispering of the two kids in the background, realised that she would… never see her family again.

Liam, her husband, was gone. Sunny’s and Mari’s graves were gone. Her house was gone. Her job was gone. Her achievements were gone. Her money and everything she had been building up her life… was gone. Even the graves of her parents wouldn’t have to be kept up more.

She wished she had sobbed and ran out of the room a bit quieter, but it didn’t matter.

She had really lost everything.

Everything… except…

A portrait of her family was still hanging in the room, showing her that she still had something in her life.

~~~

“She will come back soon,” Aubrey rolled her eyes, “Don’t worry about her too much, same with me.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kel sat back on his chair, his mug empty.

The boy put the rainbow rock on the counter, leaving its smooth and perfectly straight sides to shimmer its light around the kitchen. Or what was left of it.

“What is this?” She snatched the crystal off of the counter, turning it around and inspecting it from different sides.

“Just a rock I found inside the broken violin,” He approached her, before trying to take away the crystal from her hands.

“Broken violin?” Aubrey continued asking, dodging his very futile and weak attempts at taking the glowing thing back.

“Yeah,” He replied quickly, his brain and eyes focused on something else, “It was in the toybox, in that creepy room.”

Suddenly, Aubrey felt a hand grab her arm that was holding onto the crystal. She and Kel began falling towards the ceramic pieces of plates and the wooden floor of the kitchen. They shouted, before feeling…

A mattress?

Aubrey and Kel huffed, as they saw that the two of them were lying on a rainbow mattress. Its material wasn’t soft, nor hard. It was somewhere perfectly in the middle. The large mattress, which was leaving them flabbergasted with its colours and confusion, quickly turned back into its standard form.

“What…” Aubrey stood up from the ground, her mind trying to process what had just happened.

Kel took the stone that was lying on the wooden planks.

“What did you do?” She asked him, eyeing the stone.

“I don’t know?!” Kel shrugged, trying to find a button or something that could activate the shimmering rainbow glow. “Do you think I have any idea what is happening anymore?”

“At least you have this stone!” She shouted, pointing at the magical object.

“IT TELLS ME NOTHING?!” He backed away with two steps, getting close to the second entrance to the kitchen. “I DON’T KNOW HOW IT WORKS?! WHY WOULD I KNOW?!”

Suddenly, Aubrey fell onto the ground. She began sobbing loudly, her tears making the wooden planks a lot less dry than they should have been.

“I JUST WANT TO KNOW SOMETHING KEL!” She cried out loud, “I WANT TO KNOW IF ANYONE SURVIVED, IF OUR FRIENDS ARE DEAD, IF THE WORLD IS GONE COMPLETELY?! EVEN THE GROUND ISN’T REAL ANYMORE!”

Kel - not replying - sat down next to her, giving her a shoulder to cry on. His other hand was keeping him still, as she mumbled and cried words she couldn’t really understand. It was a moment of pure tranquillity, sadness and well… nothingness as well.

It felt wrong, this entire thing, situation, problem, conflict, conclusion, whatever it is… was wrong. There was no goal to shoot, no ball to use as his weapon to win. There was no skill. They lost without even knowing what the rules are. And… it felt… wrong.

A rainbow flash was visible from the edge of his right eye. Aubrey seemed to have noticed it as well, as they both looked to the side.

The rainbow stone had turned into a compass. Its shimmering gradient constantly changed, as Kel saw that the compass was only made out of a single needle that pointed towards a direction. The glow of the base was so strong that it illuminated and painted the walls and ceiling of the house itself. He didn’t really know what direction it was, as the letters that would normally help with that kind of orientation, were not there.

The needle in the middle wasn’t glowing, while the rest of the tool was.

“Where do you think it is pointing to?” Aubrey swept her tears away, still speaking in a voice that reminded her of the urge to cry.

“...” Kel stood silent, before making a circle around the kitchen, looking down at the compass.

“What the hell are you doing now?” Aubrey questioned him again, already feeling her anger spike up again (out of the mindfuckery going on).

“Testing if it points in one direction,” He grumbled before actually asking the compass… “Show the direction to Adra.”

The compass needle changed its direction instantly, before beginning to blast their eyes with a rainbow stronger than the one in the sky. Kel, quickly opening and closing his eyes, adjusting to the bright sun in his hand. He walked out of the kitchen, the compass pointing at the woman that was staring at the window outside.

He couldn’t hear Aubrey’s steps, as he…

“Point to Hero,” He asked the magic compass. His eyes were glowing in its light.

The compass needle turned, turned into its dim version, and stopped. Aubrey, who was silently eyeing the thing from his side, could not predict the-

Kel ran towards the outside glass doors, as he jumped into the garden that was somehow still there. The grass of the garden was quickly dying, its vivid green turning into an unsaturated mix of grey and black. As if it was turning into the ash that was constantly raining from the sky.

The nebula was eyeing them from above, its turbulent forces not quite strong enough to reach them yet… maybe ever. Its shine comforting Aubrey, who sometimes moved her head a little more up than it was normal. Its vivid colours contrasted against the black palette and the grey snow made it even more visible than it probably would have been.

Alas, the black centre of the storm in the middle was darker than the sky next to it.

The trees that surrounded the garden were gone or dying, their look similar to the one of the flower in the pot. The flowers that were spread out across the ground, their fate was close to one of the other plantlife.

Each step forward she took, she could feel more dread come into her. The lack of any other sounds, the lack of wind blowing her hair, the lack of birds singing out loud, the lack of any kind of ambiance except Kel’s walking…

All of it freaked her out.

It wasn’t natural.

But… it was real.

It couldn’t be… right?

Kel finally stopped, his path blocked by the fallen treehouse in front of them. It somehow survived this…

The treehouse wasn’t visible from the back side of the garden. They stood there, as she waited for him to move… to go back home… wherever it was.

The wooden room full of toys and old memories was gone, instead there was a ruin, leftovers. The smell of leaves and nostalgia hit her. She noticed the ladder was broken into pieces, the planks that made the whole thing into one coherent place were scattered around and shattered. 

Only some of them were still nailed to each other, while others had only holes of where nails should have been. She couldn’t find any single toy or memory of the past. Most of them were hidden in the net of leaves and branches. She wondered if the tree would rot away in this place. 

The smell of leaves - of an old place - was quickly overshadowed by her nostrils being full of dust. She coughed and jumped, using her hand to repel as much as she could.

Aubrey felt small tears form under her eyes, not only because of the fact that this place was gone, but because she had to say goodbye to it. Maybe forever. 

It never struck her that places could also hold so much value. She already cried about the fact that everyone might be dead, that her future is gone, and that they will probably die very very soon. Now, she wanted to cry because this place that was one big pile of her friends, and her innocent past, would be gone and rot away. 

Nobody would know that this house was alive, that she, Kel, Hero, Mari, Basil and Sunny played here and relaxed. This home, that she considered a safe space, was nothing a couple months ago. 

It wasn’t a place she remembered about constantly, but one she knew she could hide away in and feel welcome…

Safe.

Wanting her mind to drift off again, she took another look at the sky. She had just noticed a similarity between the compass and the rainbow sky. The colours were the same; vibrant and bright. They made it seem like maybe the world hasn’t ended and this was just a dream that she would wake up from - that this was just a hallucination she would forget about… later.

After sitting in silence, for what felt like an eternity, Aubrey began walking the other way.

“Where are you going?” He noticed her footsteps after only a couple of metres. Strangely enough, he tensed up a little, but continued looking the other way.

“We are leaving… right?” Aubrey made sure, her voice not fully expressing what she felt at this point in time, “Somehow…”

“I-” He stuttered, “I hope we will.”

“So, I am going for Adra.” Aubrey took another step towards the safety of that broken house. “I will be back soon… okay?”

Her voice was getting already a bit strained from all this talking…

“I, yeah… I just forgot about her,” Kel replied, before walking the other way.

Aubrey sighed, still noticing his tensed up shoulders and arms. He seemed to be shaking a little too much…

For a moment, she wanted to change her mind and stay with him but… for some odd reason she didn’t fully understand, she kept her new promise.

Walking alone towards the house was even worse than the way there. The image of a grey and old house, that looked as if it was older than her great grandparents. The windows were shattered, the walls were weirdly rough and sometimes didn’t match the other parts of the walls. Some of the shapes didn’t fit the rectangular nature of the house.

She ignored the stump.

She ignored the stump.

She couldn’t think about the stump.

Aubrey found Adra holding the flower pot, standing next to the couch. Her eyes were visibly red, her pupils almost as vivid as the nebula dancing above them.

“We are going,” Aubrey stated blankly. She already turned around and was about to walk out when-

“Can I stay?” The woman asked. Aubrey felt her fingers grab the metal pole that served as a window frame less than an hour ago.

“No,” Aubrey didn’t look back at her face; she didn’t want to know what the woman felt, “We have to go, somehow… I don’t know how yet but Kel and I will think of it and-”

She didn’t finish the sentence. Its implications lingered for longer than the dust swinging in the air they breathed.

“I will pack something for us…” Adra put the flower pot on the ground, keeping the dead flower safe, “If there is something left…”

Aubrey sighed; hearing the footsteps - the indication of her successful conversation.

The girl turned around to see that dead flower, waiting to be picked up by its owner.

Chapter Text

Cyzor sat down on one of the islands, staring at the beauty of the Nebula above. Its colours were a majestic concoction of beauty. This storm would become his new definition of creation. The dust that clouded the sky of the UnderVoid could not stop anyone from looking at it. The colours were blinding, compared to the void-black and empty atmosphere of the entire place.

He was glad that it shone brighter than the grey dust, that the rocks that were coming out of it were falling like stars.

He missed them.

The texture of the rock, and its lack of smell, could not stop him from focusing on the god-like destruction he had just caused. 

His breaths were freeing, the pressure of the years of work… gone. 

For a split second, a single breath, his mind wasn’t thinking about the future. He was in stasis… for one moment too long.

Cyzor’s mind quickly drifted to the thoughts that had been clouding his mind since forever.

Revenge.

A single world out of 1342 worlds was enough of a sacrifice, so that he could become god. A god-like figure that could finally take over his mentor’s work.

He chuckled to himself, cackling like a bird that hadn’t said anything in a long while. His throat coarse, his voice more rough than the stones he was standing on. 

Cyzor didn’t mind that some monster could hear him, the fight would be one-sided after all. His hands and legs were shaking from excitement.

Cyzor took out his compass, the rainbow Gem, and looked at it. The key to it all. The young teen reminisced on when he had the Gem in his hand for the first time.

It was his favourite moment in his life… until now.

The Rainbow Gem in the dark metal compass acted as the needle, pointing towards its goal.

“Dimension Gem,” he whispered, as he wouldn’t be able to speak louder to the crystal with unlimited power… that was sadly locked.

No one had ever discovered how to unlock it.

It didn’t matter.

The compass needle began spinning around in circles, never stopping. Not giving the boy the closure he thought he deserved.

It was shining constantly, its rainbow light being the only thing that rivalled the sparks above. The glow of the needle changed constantly, turning from a lamp to a dark sky in seconds. After more than a minute, probably, the compass still didn’t point towards a single direction.

It couldn’t find it.

His compass couldn’t find it…

Why?

He remembered his calculations, days… months spent working at the desk trying to make sure that everything would go right. This part of the entire plan was so obvious, that he didn’t even bother to check if this Dimension had its own Gem…

Why wouldn’t it? Why would it not contain a Gem, there were no special cases after all…

Or were they?

Was there something that just couldn’t be explained by maths and experiments? A thing that was the way it is because of the fact that it just existed.

Was this just an oversight he had made, or a revolutionary discovery that would change everything they knew about Riftworld itself?

No, it had to…

But if he had just annihilated one dimension, where would its Gem go?

Logically, it had to be here… right?

“The second Dimension Gem,” Cyzor ordered the crystal again, his tone a tiny bit louder. The compass needle stopped moving and…

Nothing.

It just-

It-

Didn’t-

What-

Was it gone?

He moved around, spun around, nothing.

“Dimension Gem,” The teen ordered again. The compass began spinning again.

His dream.

His mentally unstable dream, the dream of the cyan haired boy was as gone as the many rocks in this endless abyss. He was so close to becoming… god. A god of the rifts, a god that everyone would write about, everyone would remember, everyone would respect. And if they wouldn’t they would die and their families would beg for mercy! He could control Riftworld, kill that goddamn red moth, and destroy everything that had hurt him in the past. He could have revived his parents or tried to solve every Gem.

Alas…

The cloud of emotions that was in his head this entire year's long journey was finally getting cleared by the storm above. Oh how he had wished it had stayed; his ignorance to the world around him fueling the only success of his life.

The nebula above him.

He didn’t want to be here, to cry publicly in front of the Gem-dust air filled around him.

And so, he took out his portal gun - aiming it at the air in front of him - and-

“ERROR” rang from the gun once he had pulled the trigger. He tried again.

“ERROR” The red text on the display was uncomfortable.

The nebula didn’t know about his pain.

“ERROR” It continued to scream that something was wrong with this place.

“ERROR” He scanned the rainbow crystal, making sure that it didn’t have the Dimension Address.

“ERROR” Again and again.

“ERROR” He tried, Cyzor really did.

The nebula didn’t look at its creator, it was too busy looking at everyone else.

Cyzor - realising that he couldn’t return to his only home - fell to the ground. His tools, his equipment, it was gone until he knew where he was.

His tears were only heard by himself. His shouting and attempts at standing up were futile as he began banging his head into the rocky ground.

Blood - the red substance fell onto the colourless grey rock as he had pierced his skin out of frustration.

He was stuck, in the world that was supposed to give him everything he ever needed.

The nebula didn’t know, and it would never know. It couldn’t think, it couldn’t look, it couldn’t stare. It could only spin, and exist.

~~~

Sunny was swinging back and forth - sitting on the pier. Aubrey had finished telling him about the party, about everything, and about the first moments in this place.

The UnderVoid; as Charles called it.

He looked down at the water. His face was still somewhat the same as it was last time he saw it, staring at the window that led to his death.

He could jump in now, drown himself and die.

But, responsibilities were in the way.

Sunny - with his glowing second eye - still didn’t believe that he deserved any of their company. That he would only cause more problems, and that he would only cause more pain.

They tried to tell him otherwise, but with this new life… he was given… it was the same exact thing.

He had already killed someone after all.

Everyone - even that new guy he had never seen before, Charles - believed that he would be vital to going back home and keeping them safe from Cyzor.

The boy heard footsteps behind him, the pier shaking a little. Sunny stood up, and turned around, seeing a dark figure in the silhouette of the never-ending nebula above them. It was - he didn’t know who this was.

“Isn’t this boring?” The person said, his hair long and black, but a lot more well-kempt than his. 

His eyes were the standard - brown. He was wearing some kind of golden glasses with machinery attached to it that he didn’t quite grasp yet. The black liquid, known as the Grimd, was also staining the gold.  He was holding a couple of rocks in his hands.

“What?” Sunny asked him, trying not to be a giant walking flashbang.

“Sitting next to this giant lake,” The person sat down, “Wanna try rock-skipping? It looks cool; the ripples on the water remind me of explosions.”

Sunny closed his eyes, and sighed, before nodding and taking one of the rocks.

They were a bit lighter than the ones he held outside of FarVoid. They were also grey, instead of dark grey; and they were surprisingly flat and smooth. They looked similar to the ones back at Faraway, wherever that was.

“Yeah, I made these,” He smiled, “They aren’t for gawking though, I like throwing them more.”

The person that sat by him, threw the rock at an almost perfect angle, bouncing more than ten times at least. The ripples were quite nice, forming a moving arch that reflected his rainbow colours.

The eye was a lot dimmer than usual… huh.

A couple of silent throws later, all of the rocks were under the water.

The person quickly stood up and yawned, before slowly walking towards one of the buildings that Aubrey and her friends had made. After a few steps on the grassy dirt, he turned back again, saying one more thing.

“You can try getting them out of the water,” He shouted with a tired voice, “I am sure you can somehow do it,”

And then the stranger left.

Sunny returned to swinging back and forth, before reminiscing about well…

That place.

~ E- [...] 1347 - [...] I am sorry, Cyzor. [...] ~

Sunny, swinging back and forth on his swing, couldn’t stop thinking about his friends. His time spent on this swing, looking and talking to everyone he had - and still - loved. Tiny tears of water gathered around his eyelids, before they fell onto the colourful floor. The water splashed, as if the floor was already made out of tears, before they disappeared.

He huffed, trying as hard as he could not to think about Hero, Kel, Basil, Aubrey and Mari. Their picnics, the last days, the duet, the violin, the photos, the parties, everything that he had enjoyed and gave him any sense in life. Everything he had done flashed before his eyes, as for a second he thought he was in Faraway park, swinging next to Aubrey and listening to her.

Sunny jumped out of the swing, it was still going up and down in the air. The chains were still moving, and made gentle quiet sounds. They looked like they were making a wave as they went infinitely up. Even though the world wasn’t curving, and there seemed to be nothing going through the air, Sunny couldn’t see the ceiling other than colourful patterns that turned into noise.

While the sounds of the swing continued to break the silence, Sunny went towards the radio. The noise that was coming out of it was so quiet that he had forgotten about it until now. He crouched, not willing to sit on the cold floor, and eyed the single knob coming out of the radio with his eye. After not putting much thought into it, he turned the knob a little to the left.

The noise had stopped instantly. Instead, the TV was displaying a couple of small black and barren islands. There seemed to be a little bit of dust going through the sky. It was weird, as the thing the TV was showing looked very real. More vivid than his dreams, more vivid than anything he did while he slept.

Sunny, staring at the familiar screen, spun the knob a little. Thousands of sounds and images had passed by in nanoseconds. As every single spin, every single time he moved it, a different angle of a different part of this sad looking barren world became visible to him. The only question he could think about now was…

Why?

Chapter Text

Entry 1 - Hello, this is Prin writing here. Ceropia told me to start a journal about our travels through the Riftworld and our general progress that we are making to create the first multidimensional base for Signal Space. I called it the Entry Point. Yes, I made that name; Ceropia barely agreed to it, luckily she did.

Anyways, she told me that they sometimes have very weird thoughts or things nagging them when they travel, so from now on every traveller has to have a journal that is locked with their own three passcodes… two of them are supposed to be physical.

I think this is to prevent anyone from reading these journals, and people were suspicious that Ceropia wants to spy on us after her hostile takeover of Signal Space. I have to help her keep her leadership in check, by showing that is in fact good… I believe her.

Riza was a power hungry dictator, as smart and powerful as she was. This is it for now, I hope I will remember all the passcodes!

<~~~>

“Are you a hundred percent sure these boots will work without any prior training?” Kim asked the slightly older than her boy that was standing next to the ledge.

Kim was currently trying to put on very tight shoes that made her feet ache a bit already. She didn’t know if Charles just gave her a smaller pair because that was his only backup, or if these shoes were just made like this for him. 

Their metallic cold texture pierced her socks and made her shiver from the bottom up. Henry looked at all of this, kind of scared he will need to do the same very soon. They couldn’t be stuck on this tiny floating island forever after all.

Charles was already ready, looking at her struggle in pain and cold. His long brown hair was covering one of his cyan coloured eyes. His face looked a bit beaten up, as a tiny scar was still visible on his left cheek. He was almost as tall as Hero, his legs and arms looked quite thin. 

He was wearing some silver metal clothes, it looked very stiff and kind of dusty and worn out. There were cuts and scratches all over it, and it looked like the same metal her boots were made out of. His legs were also covered by this weird but somewhat flexible armour. 

His shoes - the same ones Kim had almost on - looked a bit bigger, with a very vivid purple glow acting as its sole. 

There seemed to be a red shirt under him, but it was barely visible because of the metallic shell around him. The chestpiece he was wearing also had a belt around it, different guns and tools that she had never seen before (as well as three different coloured leather pouches) were hanging off of it.

“Need some-” Charles began to ask, but he quickly got interrupted by an angry shout from the girl, while she was trying to put on the second shoe. She succeeded after a couple of moments.

Charles, seeing that she was already beginning to stand up, backed up a bit and jumped towards the closest island like he did beforehand, moving towards the campfire in the distance he had set an hour or two ago. 

Purple lines emanated from the shoes behind him, while his jump was a lot bigger. He had landed almost perfectly in the middle of the floating rock, the purple slowly disappearing from the dusty sky. He looked back to see Kim stand on the edge of the first platform, looking down below.

The world below looked emptier than an abyss. Tiny platforms - like the one they were on - were floating in the air and grabbing dust before somehow letting it through. The ash was the only thing that was consistent, its speed and direction static.

“Are you sure this is completely safe?” She questioned again, the void below seemed infinite and she did want to spend her life with at least a bit of diversity. Breathing and falling would not cut it right now.

“Yes,” He answered this time, “I will catch you if something goes wrong.”

“Pfff,” She scoffed, not really buying his words, “You probably have the strength of a stick without this plastic suit on you.” And then she jumped.

She shouted mid-air as she felt that she was weirdly floating. Her jump was a lot floatier, like the gravity of the world had just decreased. Streaks of purple were leaving her boots, following behind her. It felt kind of freeing.

Suddenly, she felt the ground stop her and cause her to almost lose balance. She barely landed on it, but she also didn’t jump from the fastest speed ever. Charles was grinning, before taking another jump forward.

Kim had to breathe and stop her panicking mind right now. She looked behind her. Hero was still staring at both of them, analysing what exactly was happening. Her breath was short and quick, her heart was beating quickly. 

It felt like there was another panic attack incoming, yet the boy in the distance was waiting for her. She shivered, goosebumps on her arms and legs. The cold of this world was similar to late-autumn breezes, but lacking any of the colourful leaves spinning around.

She took another step back, feeling her lungs breathing in the ash, and began sprinting before taking a leap forward. Kim didn’t look down, her hair and the streak of purplish light following close behind her. The lack of wind made this experience even more familiar to the world they were forced to leave. 

It felt like swinging on a swing or jumping into the lake. Activities she already missed when Aubrey locked herself away, now impossible to get back to.

Her feet landed on the edge of the island. She took a swift step back, before losing her balance and falling onto the ground with her back almost hitting the uneven rock floor.

“You alright?” Charles asked kindly, his hands a bit stiff. Kim jumped back up before rolling her eyes and looking over to the next jump. Charles huffed, and made a run up to the next one. This time, after floating in the air, he landed perfectly in its middle. 

The two of them continued the journey, not even stopping at the campfires to heat up, as the jumps themselves were already enough. Kim stayed silent, while Charles made sure that she landed as safely as possible.

The purple outlines of their shoes sparkled the ash falling down behind them, illuminating the world more and more as the nebula that was spiralling above them slowly faded away.

Once they got to the ruins of the city, and Charles went back for Hero (with the tiny purple shoes not on Kim anymore), the nebula was completely gone. Leaving Kim in darkness on the edge of a giant island… with a broken city behind her. She sat down on the uncomfortable cold and hard concrete and looked down below once again.

“Would they even know if I died? ” She questioned herself, her legs already floating in the endless falling void. She did not even want to look behind her, as a smell of blood approached her, overwhelming her senses. People were dying behind her, bleeding out. 

And she couldn’t possibly move, she didn’t want to see it or feel it or be here in the first place. Everyone else she knew could be dead like this, and she couldn’t even say goodbye.

“Do I want to be here? ” Kim asked herself again, a question that she never thought about before… 

She would always try to support her friends, and steal when she thought that her moral compass allowed for it. But what would she do here, they could still revert all of these changes… but wouldn’t it be already too late? Why did Charles need them with him? He could probably do all of that alone.

With her hands on the concrete, tightly holding gravel and pieces of the road, she felt her heart beat quickly. The weight of those jumps and their difficulty just hit her as her legs were just a hanging weight she was too tired to move. 

She was one movement away from death, there would surely be an island that would stop her from falling. She could just push her hands forward and close her eyes. Charles and Hero would not know where she went, and probably realise later on… but would they really care.

Charles seemed to have this weird and disquieting aura around him, while Hero did not even probably know about her until that one time in that dead weirdo’s house…

An image of Aubrey after his death appeared in her mind, how dead she looked; her pale skin and blank stare portraying an emotion that humans shouldn’t be able to show were frightening. He jumped off, and killed so many other people with the earthquake and the ripple. He jumped off like she wanted to do right now… at this very moment. 

These emotions were so sudden, weren’t they?

She pushed herself backwards, her legs touching the cold concrete. Her heart stopped running, but she still felt more tired than before. She couldn’t destroy others, even if she didn’t know them, or didn’t care about them… She would be a murderer if she did that after all.

~~~

“Can- can we take a break for now?” Henry huffed, his legs already dying from the jumping and his stomach was turning every time his altitude decreased in a very unnatural way. 

Charles didn’t respond, he just sat down and looked at the dying adult in front of him. Henry sat down in front of him, the shoes not helping as they were more than mildly uncomfortable. The island they were on was a bit bigger than the average one, but it was also not special enough to give it a name or stay here. It was just another part of this floating wasteland.

Charles just stared at him, before looking at the ground and waiting, he didn’t look like one to want to start up a conversation. He had a guilt filled look for a moment, before turning back into its depression. It was visible for so short that Henry wondered about that tinge of different emotion too much… probably overcomplicating.

“How do these work?” Henry asked, wondering how purple shining shoes caused all of them to jump higher and freer.

“They-” Charles stuttered, looking back at him before changing his expression to a sadder one, “They just do.”

“You do not know how they work?” Henry questioned him, making sure that he was hearing right.

“Yes,” Charles said with a tinge of resentment following his voice, “I do not.”

While Henry stood up, still feeling bits of sweat falling down towards the ash-filled ground, he eyed the younger man. Confused and perplexed by the fact he lied. Charles’ stiff and a bit more quick movements confirmed this fact, especially his shocked and stressed eyes.

~~~

“Finally,” Kim raised her arms up in the most exaggerated manner possible, seeing Henry struggling more than her with getting those metallic shoes off herself.

Charles quickly got his pair off, putting them in one of his many bags and pockets. They fit perfectly in the slot, not even making any scratching sounds against the metal. Henry, after many uncomfortable pulls, got his pair off, before giving it to the boy. Kim was still lying on the ground, her head turned towards the two of them.

Charles himself was staring back at Kim and Henry, trying not to look at the buildings and cracked roads around them. He soon felt the smell of fresh blood, one he was too accommodated with. He hated feeling it. Henry winced a little and shook, the ruined and cracked buildings of the city were not only abandoned but also probably full of unsuspecting people. All of it happened so quickly after all.

Henry’s instinct kicked in, wanting to run to those people, grab a first aid kit and try to help them. Sadly, his legs weren’t working properly. They were so tired. Kim stood up, finally with enough energy to look at the world before her eyes at a 0 degree angle. 

Cracked pieces of concrete, broken roads, cars smashed into pieces, rooftops and glass shattered, water and pipes probably broken underground. The sight was atrocious, revolting and…

She puked, green vomit escaping her mouth, the junk food that she ate during the party was now on the floor in the acidic substance that made her feel empty. She heard the distant huff of Charles in the background, not amused by her shock and her-

“Feeling ill?” Henry asked, a bit shocked, he walked up to her while looking around for anything that could help. 

“I am smelling literal blood Hero!” She shouted back, feeling nausea and her body feeling a bit more tired and limp. Her stomach was empty and its contents still seemed to be spinning around. “A lot of IT!”

Charles caught Kim from falling quicker than Hero - somehow being a lot quieter while doing that - and pushed her a bit towards the building. She almost lost her balance, barely stepping backwards while feeling very confused about her surroundings. 

The girl suddenly felt a cold and rough texture touch her back as she jumped forward a bit before realising that she couldn’t stand straight. Charles caught her again, making her sit down on the cold road.

“Stay with her, I will look for some survivors,” Charles commanded, before leaving Kim and Henry alone.

Henry didn’t respond, instead he just approached Kim and sat down next to her, dodging the pile of vomit on the ground with a tiny hop. The oldest didn’t really have a choice. 

Kim felt like she wanted to vomit again, but her stomach was too empty to throw anything out. She felt utterly horrible already, and she hadn’t even been here for a day…

~~~

Charles had never seen something like this before in his life. Yes, he had seen carnage, and blood and death… but not to this amount. He had been on the side of wars, or looking at the destruction of different worlds, nonetheless these people knew they could die or that there was danger… 

All of these townspeople did not know that. This city was full of concrete, steel, glass, cars, plastic, trash, water, trees, roads, vehicles; everything was destroyed or roughly cut into pieces.

He could feel the screaming of these people, the cries for help, the steps that resulted in nothing but annihilation. The falling parts of these ruptured pipes and concrete towers. 

Water flowing down from some of them, not being able to materialise into steam or into something else. Houses that were colourful and bright, now had cracked walls, lacked a roof, or had a garden of glass under them.

He walked alone, trying to find at least one person that survived. Headed towards one of the skyscrapers that hadn’t fallen down, Charles saw a couple of people lying on the ground and hugging someone else or looking around. They saw him, with a slightly shiny bag and a suit of armour.

“Are you doing alright?!” Charles shouted, they moved a bit, repulsed by how freely he was speaking here. 

They did not respond, but they did stand up and try to follow him; their minds still taking in all of this destruction.

Charles huffed, expecting this to happen. Most of these people have not seen any tragedy before, at least in reality. He knew that this humankind had media and were able to see things from the other sides of the world, but feeling it actually happen was a completely different experience no one was ready for. Charles hoped that these people would feel like they had once felt…

As he continued to walk around, he entered a park area. The grass was slowly dying, the trees were on the ground or barely hanging. Their leaves were falling out and deciding to die, while the walkways and benches were completely filled with branches, wood, dust and grass. Some of them were completely destroyed.

Charles got to an area with a giant pond and a fountain that was surprisingly working in the middle. A lot of the water was splashed around, and one tree was trying to stay hydrated, but except that this was a nice calming place. 

He looked into the water, to see a couple of fish swimming around… he would feed them later. The park was empty, as Charles only found one person. A small crowd of people was walking silently behind him, their footsteps barely making any vibrations. It didn’t bother him, and so he continued walking.

As he left the park, approaching one of the largest ruins he had seen yet, Charles noticed a broken sign pointing down with something written on it. Its pole was not straight anymore, and it looked like the sign was barely staying up. He rushed to it, wasting no time, jumping over pieces of concrete and sharp steel that could probably easily break his armour.

“Metro,” He said to himself out loud, reading the sign and looking at something that resembled a staircase but with a lot of rocks blocking the way. 

Charles - not willing to leave anyone stuck in there - put his hand into the bag of crushed pieces of Gems and concentrated. A red blue and lime hammer materialised in his hand, its shiny and smooth surface reflecting the moonlight that travelled through the ash.

He smashed the large spike-filled hammer into the rocks below, crashing them into pieces and making them shatter. It only took a bit of his strength, as the glowing colours of this tool… or weapon were visible to everyone around him. Charles swung it again and again, crashing and digging through the remains of this place.

As Charles began to sweat, and descended lower and lower, he took his left hand (that would have been used to swing) and put his hand in a different pouch. This time he took out a shiny yellow Gem, it blasted the entire place with light, making his job quite a lot easier.

After a couple of minutes, he finally got to the bottom. Tired, the hammer shattered back into dust… it was very colourful compared to that ash. He found more groups of citizens that looked scared and traumatised by what had happened hours ago. 

They looked as if they saw everyone in front of them die, even if they were stuck at the bottom, and did not know that actually happened. 

While they left, Charles noticed that the people - that were previously following him - were not going behind him anymore, probably completely spaced out. A couple of people were crying so loud from the above that he could hear their pain-filled screams from here. 

Some of them probably already realised that the world had ended, so they probably went to steal something to eat. It would be complete chaos if no one took control of the city very very soon.

The tunnels he was in were empty, with the walls and ceiling and floor sometimes cracked and dripping with water. The water drops were making sounds louder than his footsteps, both of them echoing. The yellow Gem continued to shine, as he didn’t really need a flashlight if he could just hold it. Though, he wished he had a slot to put this Gem into.

The rails of the metro were still somehow intact, intact enough to look like they could be usable again one day. The walk was quite relaxing for a situation like this. The emptiness and lack of any other sounds than his own and water, made him forget why he was here for a moment. 

Once he found a metro train, that feeling would be gone, and he would have to probably escort them back up… but for now he enjoyed the slight moment of tranquillity.

~~~

“Do you think we can just come here and settle down without asking anyone?” Henry asked, walking with Kim into a house that looked as abandoned as the rest. 

Once Kim finally got used to that horrid stench, the two of them were calmly walking through the rubble. They helped anyone they could, but without any first aid kits, Hero could not do much… He hoped all of them would be able to survive this. 

After a couple of minutes of walking, they entered a housing district, which they entered - looking for a more permanent home. They had already walked into a couple of homes, but the smell of blood and death detracted Kim instantly. 

This one though, it seemed to have been left alone by its previous owners before everything had been completely devoured.

Its windows were broken, pieces of glass lying on the ground, and some of the walls seemed to have very visible cracks in them. The front door lacked hinges, and the grass around the house was turning into black ash. Luckily, the yellow walls were still quite vivid in colour, and the orange roof seemed to have survived the catastrophe.

Kim was the first one to walk in, Henry following her footsteps, still not sure if this was under his moral compass.

“The world has basically ended,” She shrugged, looking at the things that were left behind in the first room. Boots, clothes, dog food, jackets, vests, and a lot of different hats; were lying around the place. Scattered around the floor. “We can basically do anything,”

“Doesn’t mean we should,” Henry argued, while Kim was already changing her boots to purple ones she found on the floor, “If everyone did anything they can we would probably be already dead,”

“I-” She stuttered, stopping her activity for a moment, “That is right… but it doesn’t mean that we have to live on the streets. If the owners come here - which they won’t because they are probably… you know… - we could leave the house and go to another one.”

“But-” Henry was already willing to continue this short-lasting debate, but Kim interrupted him.

“These may be our last days alive, whatever happens, I just want to enjoy it.” Kim stated before taking a deep breath and putting on her new purple sneakers. “You should try to enjoy it too.”

As she said that, she opened the door to the house. The first thing they saw was a straight red corridor with a lamp on the floor and a bunch of doors. Most of them were still closing the rooms, the door in front of them was just a frame as it led outside and it was made out of glass.

Kim walked to the closest door, the one on the right, and slowly opened it. She saw red walls - a bit more saturated than in the corridor - with a TV on the floor, a couch, table, a large bookshelf that had a ton of books under it opened and turned around. There was also a lamp on their side of the wall. The couch looked somewhat comfy, and so Kim jumped onto it. She was correct.

Henry turned around to enter the room on the left side of the corridor. A large kitchen unveiled before his eyes. A somewhat big wooden table with wooden chairs on the floor was at the side of the room, the blue walls of the place and the closed shelves with kitchen equipment inside were somewhat comforting to him. 

He looked over to the fridge, and it still had some food inside (while omitting the basket full of apples). The fridge was half empty, and the things inside were fresh, as fresh as he expected it to be.

“BOO!” Kim said calmly behind him, freaking him out a little, and peeking into the fridge herself.

~~~

Charles saw a train in the distance. Or something looking similar to a train. It was off the rails, and tilted to the side. It was against one of the stone walls of this long and boring tunnel. The “train” had a couple of people outside of it. They were standing, talking to each other. He could hear their voices echo in the distance.

While he approached them, he didn’t think of doing it discreetly, as those people did not pose any threat to him. The boy actually did the opposite, making as much noise as it was humanly and realistically possible. 

The people didn’t seem to notice or care about him though, and so he moved to them in the almost complete darkness. The only lights were coming off of the train itself.

He ignored the screaming and cries coming off of it, what had happened seemed like almost the best case scenario in this situation. The fact that this vehicle wasn’t burning up and hadn’t exploded into pieces made him slightly happy.

“Hey!” Charles finally shouted to them, water echoing louder than their - now silent - voices. 

The three men that had been talking to each other, turned their heads to see an 18 year old approach them. His silver armour looked quite strange, but luckily he didn’t notice that yet.

“Do you need any help?” He asked with a fake smile on his face, as the smell of blood sadly returned.

~~~

The amount of people in the supermarket was shocking. Henry and Kim had decided to steal some food and water for a couple of days so that they had something before everyone had stolen everything, something both of them did not want to think about.

The white building was large, with many spots for cars and many vehicles themselves that were already parked here in front of it. The sign had fallen off, and the glass front was completely broken, but the lights and everything seemed to be working perfectly. The two could already spot a couple of people inside, but not as much as they expected.

Citizens of this city were fighting, walking around, rushing and shouting at others. All of their selfish instincts were already taking over, and it hadn’t even been a day. It was not something the two incoming people didn’t know about, but they still were not ready to see it happening in reality.

While Kim walked quicker and quicker towards the supermarket, wanting to steal as many sweets as she would be able to, Henry turned around to see more and more people run towards this place. Fully knowing that this would turn into a chaotic meeting, he began sprinting faster than Kim. It didn’t even take a second for her to speed up to him and run into the giant storage warehouse first.

Coming through the front door - as they could not be less polite to the staff that were already fighting some of the people inside - Kim rushed to the giant section with food. She took a paper bag she found on the stack of paper bags that was on the floor and realised that the dark blue tiles were a bit wet. 

As Kim and Henry looked around, they noticed that the entire shop was in complete disarray. Drinks and water were opened on the floor, vegetables, fruits and other edible products were mixed together. A shelf or two had crashed into the wet floor below.

Henry began taking more necessities other than edibles - like toilet paper, shampoo, soap, and even three first aid kits he had found… or maybe that was not part of the selling? He didn’t know because of the two men that tried to steal his cart and take it for themselves. They weren’t mean enough to take it - or they noticed the lack of anything they wanted there…

He huffed, exhaustion slightly hitting him, and with the cart in hand he drove it past the groups of people that were gathering around the place. Kim slid down the path, in between the two shouting women who were stealing a lot of bread. She grabbed some from their bags, before running away. Yoghurt, milk, chocolate, ham, butter, juice! Everything for free!

The two paper bags - as she had stolen one from another person after they were screaming random bullshit at her - were already full and heavy, leading her to the hardest part of this… the escape. The two women were quickly rushing at her, ready to take back their stolen goods. Kim ran forward into the family. The two children and two adults didn’t seem too worried about her, letting her go and almost slipping on the soda-filled floor.

She spun around, seeing two of the same men Henry saw, and Henry himself running out with a cart. With her head already halfway to another vomit, and a bit of her contents already soaking in Cola, she made a tiny hop to get out of the pool of black soda and almost kicked another man. 

She dodged his grab, no matter what his intentions were. She then rushed out through the window in front of her, a shard of glass cutting her left arm a bit.

She hissed at the pain, trying not to think about it. A streak of red liquid was slowly flowing out of the cut, dripping onto the floor. Henry - as sporty as he is - his stamina was already running out. The girl quickly turned to him, and threw her bags into the shopping cart. 

With her right hand, as the left one continued to piss her off, she pushed the cart with Henry. He had quickly noticed the cut, but couldn’t say anything because of his huffing.

They ran off, tired and exhausted, dodging people that would easily hurt them just for a week worth of goods. Henry wished Kim didn’t bring him into this, as he felt a mental conflict already arise inside his mind. 

He nearly thought of coming back with the cart and returning everything… but this blur of an event confirmed that they had to be selfish… for Charles.

~~~

Charles was looking from the eighth floor of one of the skyscrapers. He was sitting on the edge of the place, glass shards around him. He had climbed up here not only to see the view of the entire place, but also to see how bad it was. And… It was bad. 

The entire city had not looked worse in any other situation. The piles of concrete and broken cars, the broken parks, houses, trees; the people shouting and stealing from anywhere they could. The parks were broken, animals were getting robbed, he could already see a house in the distance burning on fire.

He huffed and saw the falling dust in front of him get pushed back a bit. Charles felt a bit inclined to stay here and stare at this destruction he had… partially caused. 

So many deaths, so many lives lost, so many families burned, and so many more to die in the upcoming hours. He had to do something, redeem himself even more than he had to before.

Maybe he was a mess up after all.

Charles shook his head and got rid of that undying thought. He looked at his pouch of colourful Gems and then back at the people. Could he lead all of them back on track? Could they survive if someone like him was able to guide them? 

They would have to get a stable source of food, water, and other products. Maybe there were some factories nearby…

He could make this work in his head, or not. But that did not matter right now. These people needed a direction… and someone that would believe in a future. He didn’t even have to believe that himself… he just needed them to think that he had a plan. He had to lie once again.

Charles looked at his pouch once again, he took two purple Gems, and a single Turquoise Gem. He put the purple Gems on the unstable concrete floor - slowly and carefully - and put the Turquoise Gem into an empty-slotted amulet. 

The purple Gems began to float a little above the ground. He hoped this worked. The amulet changed its colour to blue, shining brightly and making him glow from the sky above. Like a star.

He put it on. Voices and shouting below became louder. The scent of blood and death grew more spoiled and horrid. The concrete and the clothes he was wearing behind the armour became more vivid in touch and texture. 

The taste of his mouth and saliva became stronger and clearer. He took a deep breath, feeling the dust touch him and his breath tickle his arms. He checked if everything was closed and zipped up. His gravity repelling boots were on tight.

Charles took the two pure shiny purple Gems and held onto them tightly. He could see a couple of people looking at him from below, their faces confused as the city gathered around him.

“Citizens!” He shouted loudly, his voice stronger than he ever heard it before. The large groups of people stopped, and eyes the star. The amulet was still glowing.

“I am here to help you!” Wind and dust didn’t stop his commands, speaking louder than the gods before. “I am here to help this city, to help all of you survive!” The townsfolk did not know what was happening but they still listened, perplexed by his words.

As he stood from the building, below the three shattered moons, he looked straight forward and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath, one that no one else could hear. His arms and legs shaking… he needed to prove he was unnatural. That he was a figure that was as unnatural as those circumstances. He tried to stop the purple light of the perfectly pure purple Gems from leaking outside with his arms.

And then he jumped.

Trust the Gems, he thought. Air and dust falling slower than him.

Trust the Gems, he repeated, gripping onto the two rocks.

You can only trust the Gems, he remembered. The fall was slower than usual but still quite long. Small tears of water leaving his closed eyes - causing them to open.

As the shouts and screams from below, people couldn’t stop watching what was happening. Entranced by the stunt, and by the fall. And as he fell, looking as if a madman decided to suicide in front of everyone. The Gems stopped his speeding body. His feet touched the concrete ground. It cracked a little, but he… survived.

The people shouted full of happiness and shock, as Charles walked and ran to the nearest high point. A miracle had just happened to them, and it was all a lie. The boy didn’t feel bad, he just looked around at the people coming to see the events unfold.

“I will help you survive, I will help you live once again in this new world!” He shouted before taking off his shining amulet, taking the Gem out and putting them back into the bag. The two purple Gems were shining a bit less.

As the crowd watched him, staring at his every move. Some questions were flying his way, voices talking and spreading louder than the invisible dust. All of them turned into white noise worse than sounds of a broken TV or a burning radio.

“I will rebuild our lives with you!” He moved along, constantly walking so that they had something to focus on. “We will use the ash that is falling on us to start again!”

“And how will you do that little child?” A question rang out loudly from someone that had been let to the new found demi-god. Charles eyed the person. His black hair was polite and clean, his green eyes were darker than the dying grass below them. He was wearing a formal black suit, and white shoes.

“My powers will help, but I need all of us to help each other to start building again,” Charles went towards the taller man, his stature intimidating him a little - not enough for him to stop his lie. It had to work out. They saw him jump and survive.

“Can we talk in private, lit-” The man began to say, looking at him… without any mischievous intentions visible in his eyes. Charles stopped him, not willing to be called that once more.

“Name’s Zenith,” The 18 year old said. He was not an adult… but he already felt like one.

~~~

The president of Nearby City was not someone that Charles had expected to listen to him. Especially after that stunt made him look like a madman. And yet, the hour-long conversation went quite smoothly. After all the people he had helped, and the “powers” he had shown, he already had the city’s trust.

In that big building - the ruins of it - he, the president, and five other important people made up a plan. All of them would focus on different parts, while Charles made sure that everything and anything supernatural would not endanger the city. Charles would also have to get the locations of nearby places for plant growth as well as different factories and power plants. He already had a plan for that.

But that would come after he had found Henry and Kim. Obviously, they hadn’t stayed in that place, and they were seen by a couple of people by one of the supermarkets, so it was only time that he would waste looking for them. Charles had already asked a lot of people, went into a lot of houses, and had to say sorry a million times as some of the houses were still taken up by their citizens.

It felt like forever, knocking doors, looking inside windows and gardens. Going around and trying to find those two. He didn’t even know why he wanted to stay with them, there was no bond in between them, yet they had already seen the truth of the magic. He had to keep them shut up so that he could still be useful. After that, he could maybe teach them about Gems and fix this world back up. Whatever that will cost.

He hoped Signal Space was too preoccupied with the Red Titan to actually look at this place, and whatever was happening here.

He knocked on another door, feeling his eyes already close and his legs wanting to give up on him. The door creaked and opened up, a familiar face of a slightly older student was looking at him.

“Where have you been?!” Hero asked, shocked to see Charles once again. Charles didn’t respond, he entered the house - glad to use them as a hotel as well - and closed the door behind himself.

“Who’s there Henry?” Kim added in, leaving the living room and seeing the one that had jumped off of a building. Her eyes opened wide as an anger clearly became visible on her face. Her left arm had a long bandaid on it. “Where the fuck where you?!”

“Just doing some stuff,” He replied to her, looking for a place to sleep. She blocked him.

“We managed to wait, find a fucking house, steal from a supermarket and Hero almost taught me how to play Chess!” She counted on her fingers, fuming hotter than fire and magma itself.

“I just had to save a couple of people,” He stated calmly, too tired to talk more, “Where is my bedroom?” He pushed her arm away. Henry wanted to step in but before he could say anything, Kim continued.

“Weren’t we supposed to go save the fuckin world?” Kim questioned him.

“We can stay here for a bit-” Hero tried to calm her down, but still wanting to come back to their previous lives.

“We have to stay here, there is a mission for us tomorrow here so, yeah.” He replied, making Kim even angrier, “Where is the bed?” Kim wanted to shout out something but this time Hero reacted quicker.

“Go to the end of the corridor, on the left there is a door to a staircase. There are three bedrooms upstairs.” He told him the directions up. Charles instantly went upstairs. The last words he had heard from that day was Kim’s shout.

“Why did you tell him?!” 

Charles rolled his eyes and saw a larger room with three doors. He went towards the one on the far right. The room was made out of cyan walls, a long bed, a couple of shelves, a desk with a lamp and some notebooks. A single window frame led outside.

The boy quickly took off his armour and tools, before jumping to bed and without a single thought, he fell asleep.

~~~

“Checkmate,” Hero stated, moving his fourth queen and winning the game after a long period of complete torture. Kim, sitting in the chair opposite to his one, rolled her eyes as if she didn’t know the outcome of this game a long time ago.

“Can you finally tell me?!” She asked again, the same question, for the millionth time. He had promised her to answer after they finished the game.

“I didn’t want to annoy him,” He replied, beginning to take the chess pieces off the board and putting them back into the box that the chess set would make. 

“We do not have another way out of this,” He shrugged before Kim could answer.

“He is on a side adventure right now and it won’t help us or anyone else in the long run!” Kim argued, “Self-centred piece of shit.” Hero took a long deep breath, while taking the chess box and putting it onto one of the shelves they were able to move up. The other one was still on the floor.

“He is trying to help this city, we have to start somewhere. Besides, there is also a second reason,” He told her, her eyes lit up for a nanosecond, “I wanted to learn more about these glowing stones.”

“As if he is gonna tell us,” She quickly said out loud what his devil’s advocate told him. She crossed her arms and fell back onto the comfiest couch she ever laid on.

“We just have to wait,” Hero looked down and answered with the most positive realistic answer he could think of.

Kim instantly stood up, and then sprinted upstairs. Her footsteps louder than the wind that had destroyed this world, or the scent of blood that luckily didn’t get into this place. She quickly returned, with a shining purple Gem in her right arm. 

“Maybe we can learn by ourselves?” She suggested putting the Gem on the table. It began to glow even brighter with its purple light, as it began to gently float above the wood.

“W- what?! We can’t just steal his property?!” Hero hissed, wanting to grab and take it back.

“Rent costs money,” She explained her mental gymnastics, before sitting on the floor and looking at how it was floating. 

Henry groaned out of frustration. On one hand, he didn’t want to destroy anything or cause them any more problems. On the other hand, Kim was right. Charles didn’t look like he wanted to teach them, even lying about the inner workings of these stones before. 

Knowing this information could help them help him maybe, or understand what they were in for better. He decided to sit down with her, on the opposite side of the Gem.

“Fine,” Hero agreed reluctantly, “Only this one time though.”

“Sure old man,” She replied, before quickly changing the topic, “I expected it to do a bit more than just… float.”

“Maybe it can only do that,” Hero tried to deduce, while Kim was playing with the Gem by trying to push it down and around the surface of the table. It really didn’t want to touch the ground, glowing more vividly when she was pushing down on it. “We saw that the fire had different colours, and the boots that helped us jump also had this purple light.”

“Do you think that I should try putting it into my shoe?” Kim asked, wanting to experiment a little bit. Her face focused on the novel movements of this rock.

“Maybe we can use it to push this shelf up?” Hero had a less… human testing approach that Kim didn’t like as much, but agreed to. 

She took the Gem, and asked Hero to pull the shelf up a bit. Quickly, before Hero could turn her arms into pieces of paper, she barely opened the shelf and stuffed the rock inside of it. Kim quickly jumped back, something that was not fully necessary. Hero instantly pulled the shelf up, as if it was something a lot lighter, quickly putting it upright against the wall.

Kim, perplexed but also somewhat perplexed by the situation, opened the same shelf and saw that the Gem was stuffed into a wooden box full of jewellery.

“It worked,” He huffed, his arms were a bit sweaty even with the help of the Gem.

“Did it?” She questioned, taking it out and putting it into her pocket. She didn’t feel anything. “This is a lot less magical than I thought it would be.”

Chapter Text

Entry 12 - Hello, this is Prin writing here. Today was a lot different.

As I stated in the entry before, we were working on the first tool that would actually work perfectly to travel through dimensions if we know their location on the Rift Map. Today was the first real test for this tool and it worked perfectly! This is probably my first tool that has worked on its first attempt! It is very exciting for me.

But, somehow something even more exciting and foreign happened. While I was testing, something had happened on one of the Manos dimensions. There was a giant fight happening, and the bloodshed I saw was… something I do not want to remember anymore.

I was able to save a single soul though, his parents died in front of me while I was trying to stop the encounter.

I do not have a name yet, but we want to take care of him.

<~~~>

The president was looking over at the large crowd of people in front of him. All of them had gathered for his speech in the middle of this ruined city. Yesterday was a complete nightmare, and he had to do something to stop the chaos from continuing to spread. Banning everyone for a week from supermarkets that were raided was just the first step in his plan.

Especially after the conversation with… Zenith… the president felt like he could help Nearby City survive and live in this weird and unpredictable world. It was his main goal right now, as the limited number of citizens and their somewhat limited expertise would not help him in creating a city. They were gathering in a large graveyard, some places still full of dead bodies nobody has cleaned up yet.

The wood pedestal that he was standing on, was put on a platform above the crowd. There were two guards around him, and a little more around the entire area so that mayhem would not ensue. The man was slightly scared, he had not really done something similar in years… maybe ever.

The crowd of people looked so much bigger than it was moments ago. Was it his stress changing how it looked? Did even more people come here? Where was Zenith… he couldn’t see the god himself. He was probably looking over at him, making sure that his plan was going to go according to the schedule.

The microphone in front of him brought him a sense of dread, the fact that his voice would be heard by the only humans - they knew - were alive and somewhat well. Even if he had discussed everything with Zenith and his assistant, as well as the other leaders of this city, it still felt like wishful thinking.

The amount of food, energy, electricity, water, building, education and hygiene they had to provide these people was not sustainable, at least it didn’t seem to be in the long term. He hoped there was some advantage to this rotten place.

He had already seen the edge of the city, and the infinite looking grey continent they were on. It was completely barren, with nothing except the dust slowly drifting down towards the ground.

The dust itself was the biggest issue they were going through, as he had to quickly kickstart an entire team of people to throw it out into the void below. They didn’t want to be drowned by it, even if he didn’t know how it worked yet.

There was so much to do, and so little time.

He took a deep breath, and one last time, looked at the giant crowd in front of him.

“Our fate and luck has cursed us with the destruction of what we knew,” he began his introduction.

~~~

He was deep into the crowd, stuck in between random citizens that were pushing each other left and right. Breathing was getting hard, especially that he was running, trying to find a place where he could easily aim from.

The dust from above was making his quick breaths even more visible than they normally would be. His steps were quick and agile, his hands holding the tiny gun in his pocket. No one knew that he was going to shoot the president.

He was speaking with a god after all. Many people already believed the boy, and the stories about his fall were already sparking legends to form around him. Yet, no one had even tried to test his abilities further. If that was an act of god, would he help the President survive?

The gun in his pocket was very annoying to hide, as he felt its hard texture. The guards that were going around, didn’t seem to mind him or find him that interesting. He wasn’t the only person moving around after all, especially this quickly. Many people were trying to get out of the mass of people, or wanted to approach the president directly.

“Our fate and luck has cursed us with the destruction of what we knew,” the president began, taking a deep breath before continuing, “Luckily, we were not completely cursed as Humans and humanity as we know it. A god, or someone that has his powers, has descended to us yesterday and with their help, as well as yours, we will be able to survive and rebuild.”

So many words that were just promises, they aren’t true, as every politician lied. Everyone was so desperate to cling onto hope, so many people believed him. He wanted to believe him too, but his sceptical mind led him to where he was now.

Everyone seemed to be focused on his words, making his test slightly easier… well if he got out of the crowd successfully.

“We will work together to survive, we will create a bastion for humanity and all of the survivors…” He continued talking to the microphone blissfully, using the last working batteries this city probably had.

~~~

Kim woke up for the first time in her brand new room. She hadn’t slept well. Her eyes slowly opened as the somewhat unknown air of the room was pumped through her lungs. The walls of the room were colourful and cracked, with the two small windows showing Nearby City, somehow still there. The bed was a lot less comfortable than the one she had been sleeping on for her entire life. 

Her sleepy thoughts were telling her to close her eyes and stay in bed the entire day. Daylight would never come back, an endless night took over their world. Her hate for the night was now even stronger than before, even if the three moons were purple.

Her room consisted of a carpet, bed, night table, a larger desk that was now in half, a couple of shelves and a closet. She liked her room much better, this room was another reminder that they would never wake up back home. She would never see her parents again, Vance, her friends, Aubrey. She would never experience the life she had before.

The closest person she had no was someone she had seen fucking ten times at maximum. Even then it felt wrong calling him a friend. She didn’t want to stand up, or wake up. She didn’t want to breathe in this world one more second. Everything was gone, and she couldn’t have done anything to stop it.

She felt tears build up under her eyes before she punched the bed and groaned into the pillow so loudly it made her throat hurt a little. The bed shook a little as she took a deep breath and shouted again. She wanted to sleep and never leave.

Why did it happen to their lives? Why did it happen to them? Was it natural? Could have someone stopped it? Why was it so sudden? Why was Charles even here? Why? WHY? WHY?! 

Kim screamed again, and again, and again. She didn’t care if anyone came here, Charles or Hero, she just wanted to cry and die at this moment in time. It was so unfair, everything felt so fragile. Why pick all the pieces up again when they will be destroyed and shattered by something they can’t change?

She could have stopped thinking about this yesterday with the raid and finding the house but what was she supposed to do now? Play chess and eat until she dies?! Why was that the only board game he wanted to play?! She should have stolen monopoly or something less mind-breaking than that goddamn game!

Knock, knock. 

She could hear someone knocking on her door. It was probably Henry. She looked at the door, jumped out of bed, and suddenly opened it. She didn’t even see who was outside, before kicking them back and closing the door as quickly as she opened it.

“Ow-” She could hear Charles say outside of her room, as she walked to bed, “Fucking hell, I won’t wake you up ever again.”

“Good,” Kim shouted back and jumped onto her bed. She pulled her blankets towards herself so that their limited warmth could make her sleep a bit easier.

“We have something to do today,” Charles opened the door and entered her room. He was already in his suit.

“Can you get the fuck out of my room,” Kim proposed to him as calmly as she could, “I want to sleep.”

“We have to go do it now,” Charles walked up to her bed, “You can sleep as much as you will want to after we get this done,”

“Why can’t you do it alone?” She asked, frustrated at her private space getting invaded by that shit-ass person.

“I can,” he explained, “I thought you wanted to know more about Gems,” and then shrugged, before walking out of the room.

Kim’s eyes opened wide as her mind wandered towards thoughts less volatile than death and pain. She had kept the purple Gem hidden in one of the drawers of her room, not wanting to risk waking him up. Understanding them more could be helpful, maybe they could help him patch the world up.

She rolled off the bed with her blanket and quickly changed out of her pyjamas and sprinted downstairs. Charles was standing at the door frame, compared to Henry who was standing outside. The cold air from the city hit her hard and made her shiver a bit.

“I told you she would come with that promise,” Charles told Henry, grinning and leaving the house.

Henry rolled his eyes and waited for Kim to leave the house, so that they could lock the door. Even if it would not help too much, the houses were still fragile and people were still in their primal state. A couple of concrete walls and makeshift doors would not stop them.

The three left, the two humans not expecting what they would have to do.

~~~

“Are you joking?” Henry asked Charles who was already next to the wall.

Charles had just told them that they had to climb the tallest building in the entire city. Kim stood frozen, eyeing the top and how tall it actually was. Henry was still confused by what Charles had just told them.

“Nope,” He confirmed and grinned, “This is a lot easier than it seems, the only thing you have to know is that you have to go up.”

The building looked less broken and dilapidated than the ones around them, with shards of glass, dust, small pieces of concrete and a lot of office equipment lying around. It seemed almost as tall as the sky from this very close point of view.

“Can we just use the stairs instead?” Henry asked, trying to find an alternative solution to this quite simple problem. 

Kim eyed him, kind of determined to try using these magical rocks. Even if it might kill her, it wouldn’t be her fault if she died. She didn’t care enough about that asshole, to think about blood being on his hands. It seemed like a win-win situation to her in any case.

“We can,” Charles stated, “But it is boring, and you guys won’t learn anything.” He shrugged.

“You can take the stairs if you want to,” The magic user added in, holding a gun looking tool and a pair of shoes. 

The shoes were familiar to her, while the gun looking tool was not. Its shiny silver look was very similar to his armour, with two holes with a mechanism on the side. He took out a red and blue Gem out of one of the leather pouches and slotted them nicely into the gun. 

Charles passed it to Kim, and took a rougher looking copy, before doing the same thing. He looked in the bag for a second too long with perplexed eyes, before tying it back up.

“Let's make this a race,” He raised the bar for the exercise, Henry was already walking up the stairs. “You versus Kim,” He pointed at the oldest one.

Kim felt a weight hit her, as the building had become a lot less inviting right now. She gulped, holding the gun tightly in her hand. The two colourful Gems were not shining a lot, their glow only reflecting the light of the moons instead of brightly showing themselves. At least compared to the boots she had to put on.

As the two waited, she realised that they were standing around in silence for her. Kim rolled her eyes and grunted loudly to make sure that Charles knew how annoyed by them she was. This time though, the shoes were somehow the perfect size, making her job of putting them on a lot easier.

“Ready?” He made sure, the two of them nodded, looking at how tall the building was. 

“Go!” Charles shouted and shot his gun up. 

A bright blue-red hook was released from the gun at tremendous speed, piercing the air and the dust. The two Gems at the side of his gun flashed and glowed like the sun, letting their signature light escape them. A bright red chain was tied to the hook, dancing in the wind. The hook dug into the concrete wall, making a hole.

Charles was thrust up into the sky, his trajectory similar to the one of the hook. The hook itself was pulled back into the gun, ready to be shot again.

Before Kim could realise what was happening, she could hear footsteps approach the staircase, forcing her to close her eyes and shoot up.

She could hear the chain moving around, as the gun was moving her hand around into different and seemingly random directions. After a few heartbeats, she realised why closing her eyes was a bad idea.

Kim was flung into the air, similar to Charles. She felt dust hit her faster, her hair getting thrown to the side, her glasses barely keeping themselves on her nose. The girl screamed as her eyelids opened to the sight of being metres above the ground. The Gems of the gun were blinding her a little, 

Her heart beat accelerated as she looked down to see that she was beginning to slow down. Panicked, she shot up and a bit to the side. The world felt so much lighter, until the hand that was clinging onto the gun was suddenly pulled more right and up.

Her hand almost slipping off of the metal, Kim gripped onto it tighter, shouting again. Air was not an issue, looking down was. The girl didn’t know how far up she was, and she was too concentrated on trying not to fall to her death to count.

Everything was happening so fast. She realised that she was at the corner of the building, and shot back to the other side. This time somewhat ready for the pull.

This was so stressful, but also so freeing. Somehow, it felt right and wrong at the same time.

Her heart racing, her hand was shaking. It made aiming up and clinging onto the gun a lot harder, as her life somewhat depended on it. Even if she had those weird boots - streaks of lights following behind her movements - that made falling a lot slower somehow, she was still moving quite quickly.

“GAH!” Kim felt the pull again.

She flew more up than to the side this time. Her mental preparation for this was not enough, as it still freaked her out. She was flying quicker than she thought she possibly could be without dying. Her legs moving behind her, her hair collecting and throwing away the ash.

The girl looked up again, she didn’t know how far she was compared to the bottom, she didn’t want to look down. The silhouette of Charles was on the edge of the building, looking at her and probably smiling.

“Fucker,” She grumbled and shot straight up.

The hook flew through the air, piercing the tiny particles themselves. The chain - once again - rolled out of the gun like a string of a yoyo. The hook hit the wall quite quickly, a couple of tiny pieces of concrete escaping the hole.

She held onto the weapon with both of her hands this time, awaiting the pull that came one moment faster than she expected it to. Her legs kicked the sky as she felt herself skyrocketing towards Charles and maximum speed.

The dust seemed so much slower compared to her, almost still, as if it was not falling. 

Kim - somehow - found these movements more freeing than anything ever before. With every shot, every swing and every hold of the gun, it felt more natural to her. Something that she didn’t think she was ready for.

The hook clicked back into the gun, she bit on her tongue lightly and closed one of her eyes as she pulled the trigger and fired again.

Even though she was still rising up, she didn’t want to stop going up. Kim wanted to go faster and faster into the sky. She wanted to feel this freedom more and more, swinging from one place to another like some kind of superhuman.

Another pull up. The chains rattled back towards the gun while she rose up higher and quicker.

The girl was ready towards another shot up, when she realised that she was already approaching Charles. The guy looked at her with a large grin. His purple shoes were not on him anymore, and his gun was stored on his belt.

Kim - who was above the top floor right now - shot the gun at the floor, not realising what she had just done.

The hook quickly landed and pulled her towards the floor. The girl was still not used to the speed and as she was launched, she stopped holding onto the gun.

It didn’t help as the momentum was still there, and in about a second or two, she would face-plant onto concrete.

She screamed, not wanting to become a pancake after using that gun.

Kim closed her eyes and prepared for impact with her arms in front.

And then, she felt something a lot more smooth than cracked stone. The girl opened eyes to see Charles, holding her with a red and purple shield made out of a material similar to Basil’s axe at the party. The shield turned into pieces of red and blue glitter, covering the grey surface with more colour. 

She took a step back - seeing how close she was to Charles - and fell onto the ground, realising how tired she was.

Her breaths were still quick, her heart was still racing, her hands were still shaking out of the adrenaline this had provided.

While she lay on the ground, waiting for her body to get used to the floor again, Charles used a vacuum-like tool to take the colourful glitter, before putting it back into the bag. He looked at her, and put his back against a blue metal structure that was on this building.

“You did surprisingly well Kim,” Charles stated, “Especially that the Gems were working a lot stronger than they usually are.”

“I- I beat Henry,” She managed to huff out, “That- is what counts…”

“Yeah,” he shrugged, “also that. We still have to climb this blue thing to get even higher. This will be the perfect spot for my job today.”

“Ughhh…,” She yelled out her disapproval, deciding to stay on the cold floor a bit longer.

“See you at the top then,” Charles said nonchalantly and began climbing the ladder to get to the top of the radio tower.

Kim turned around a bit to see a blue tower made of metal standing on the top of the building. It seemed kind of out of place. Nonetheless, she pulled herself up and walked towards the ladder.

~~~

“Look who finally showed up!” Charles laughed, his arms against one of the bars that made the metal fence. "Took you a while.”

Henry was about to die. His heart was racing, his legs were not working properly, his arms were more flexible than spaghetti. Walking up those stairs and racing against Kim was not a good idea, even if it was a lot safer than what she had done.

He still remembered her screams as he went up and gaslit himself into believing that Charles had everything under control. Well, he had, since Kim was standing and looking at the crowd forming in the distance.

The top platform of the radio tower was above every single building, giving a clear view of the city and its edges. It was still quite big, with many different skyscrapers and houses, but it was visibly out of place. The city suddenly ended, as if someone had cut a line in the middle, and some places where buildings should be… weren’t there.

For example, the Nearby City Mall that would be one of the things Kim would be excited about, was gone. There was just a hole in its place, nothing even replacing it. 

The three purple shattered moons were shining brightly at them, and at the city. They somehow emitted light, even if there was no sunlight in sight. Their rays bounced around the dust that was falling onto the ground.

“Yeah,” He replied, finally getting to the top. “It. Did,”

“I can finally show you guys why we came here,” Charles shrugged and took out the gun with the hook again. It was filled with two turquoise Gems. “We came to watch the show!”

“The people below?” Kim asked, staring at people gathering into one giant crowd, “What are those fuckers up to?”

“Why you calling them… that?” Henry questioned, not letting Charles talk.

“They attacked us at the shop,” She stated, turning back to the older man for a second before looking back at the ants below, “They will turn on everyone if it means that they will survive one more day.”

“Anyways,” he tried not to grin, “We will be looking to find anything outside of the city we can potentially get to.”

“And by we, you mean we are-” Henry huffed out, still trying to breathe normally.

“Ah… yeah that isn’t a learning experience if I do the work…” Charles said, giving the gun to Henry. Kim’s eyes brightened up. “You haven’t used that yet, give it a go.”

Henry, kind of taken aback by the gift, took it in his hand. In an instant, the world around him changed. Everything around him became louder. He felt his vision strengthening, he could see a lot further, and the colours of the place seemed a lot more vivid than before. He could hear everything, the heart beats and murmurs of the crowd below. The dust of the sky was a lot more disturbing, the smell of corpses and blood returned stronger than before…

Henry instantly threw the gun to Charles, scared and overwhelmed by everything. Charles grabbed the gun and laughed. Kim turned her head, interested even more.

“What the… was that?!” He stopped himself from swearing, “Did you-”

“Yes,” Charles laughed even louder, casually holding the gun in his hand like it was nothing, “That reaction was priceless!” He held his stomach and couldn’t stop giggling. “Wanna try Kim?”

“Ehhh-” She looked back at Henry, his eyes piercing into hers, telling her that it was not worth it. “Sure,”

The girl stood up from the ground and took the gun from Charles’ hand. She instantly gave it back to him, after the overwhelming nature of that tool revealed itself in full force at her.

“Fuckin hell, get that away from me-” She felt a bit lightheaded from that, her head spinning, “I had enough,”

“You guys will understand once you do this kind of stuff as much as me,” Charles shrugged and began looking around the empty world.

He quickly found a couple of houses, shops, a factory or two, a generator, random pieces of buildings, and different dead plants and nature he wished he could have recorded. He focused, ignoring the sounds and other senses as much as possible, so that he wouldn’t feel overwhelmed too quickly.

A tinge of guilt swept in, it was his fault.

And then, the boy noticed something very weird. A bunch of dark sponge-like creatures, walking in a large pack. They were walking quite slowly, and he had never seen anything similar before. Their claws, their postures and bodies, it was somewhat natural but also completely alien to him.

They seemed to be coming at him, getting…

They were slowly - but surely - coming towards the city.

“Oh god,” he whispered to himself, so that the two people next to him couldn’t hear him.

Ringgg~

A sharp sound came out of the speakers, deafening everyone and almost killing Charles. The boy took the Gems out, and felt everything around him calm down…

Henry and Kim were sitting on the edge, Henry slightly closer to the centre of the radio station. Both of them didn’t see Charles’ face, luckily. They were too concentrated at the show below. It was quite a nice view.

He tried to smile, but Charles didn’t feel happy, or close to them. He couldn’t, never again. 

~~~

He was so close to getting out of the crowd and being able to shoot. The President was still talking, but he didn’t focus on his words. The only thing he wanted to do right now, is to test the abilities of God himself. To shoot and see if the person posing as a god figure was actually credible.

The people in his way were not interested in the fact that a single person was going through the crowd, most of the cityfolk had frozen up and stood like unmovable concrete pillars. Running and pushing them away without anyone noticing the gun in his pocket was making his heart beat. He hoped that no one would see him shoot. This was just a test.

This was just a test.

He could have just gone with the people, with those deprived souls, and believed that he was the new god. Maybe the god of this land.

Could he be the reason they were here? Maybe his family died because of him, because of that child. This was all a game to him, playing with people and their emotions. Playing with what they had and taking it away to experiment on them. Maybe it was only nearby that disappeared, the rest were probably alive.

Those thoughts fueled him, making him run faster and his breaths quicken. His heart was accelerating with him, he could feel the gun going back and forth in his pocket. The words of the president were not important at this moment, not focusing enough on them to make out what he was saying.

This moment felt too long.

Walking through this place was taking too long.

His breaths were so short.

His steps were almost like jumps.

The air was so hot, since when this place was so stuffy.

The adrenaline was continuing to spike, as if he had drank coffee one minute before going to bed.

Everything was turning into a blur.

And then, a cold breeze.

He was outside.

The people that he had just pushed were staring at him, as he regained normal sight once again. He stepped around to find a high spot, and jumped onto a giant rock of concrete and metal rods. The guards weren’t looking at him yet.

He saw the president, talking loudly through his microphone.

“And I also want to thank Zenith,” he said loudly. The crowd cheered on.

He took a deep breath, and took out his gun from his pocket. His skills couldn’t fail him now, even if they maybe should. 

His hands shook.

His ears rang.

His blood flowed.

“For giving all of us hope!” The president shouted, and walked away from the microphone. His movement was too sudden, but it was too late.

His finger had already pulled the trigger.

~~~

“For giving all of us hope!” The president shouted, and then…

Gunshot.

The man in front of the microphone collapsed.

Charles’ eyes opened wide, as he realised what had just happened. He looked around, and quickly saw the person that had shot the president. Shouting and screaming was coming out of the crowd.

“What-” Kim began to ask, but he couldn’t hear the rest of her words. He focused, took purple Gems into his hand, and jumped.

Floating through the sky, he traced the person. He was running back into the crowd, or the remains of it. The people were screaming and running in different directions, distracting him from focusing. He had to keep himself calm.

“Trust the Gems,” Charles repeated in his head, staring at the ground rapidly approaching him. No one was looking at him, yet this was a lot more stressful than yesterday.

He already failed, his plan didn’t even last a single day. Not only did it not work out, there was a giant swarm of monsters he had never seen before walking towards the city for some reason. He was not prepared for this, Ceropia didn’t tell him this!

Shouts, screams. Halfway there. The person was confused, as if they didn’t want to shoot. Or maybe they were trying to find a place to hide. Guards were rushing to the pedestal. Blood.

He was falling. Spinning in air and not concentrating on landing.

He was not immortal, he wasn’t God.

And yet he acted like one, he had to, someone had to. The world needed a direction before it could self-destruct.

Screaming, no one was looking.

“FOCUS, PLEASE.. ” His mind rang out loud, crying for help to just calm down. He couldn’t-

~~~

“Charles,” His father figure told him that one day, this dream would not let him go, “You know that, I never wanted that… I never…”

“Lies,” Charles said back, “You knew! You fuckin’ knew! And there was nothing you changed! You just let it- happen?!”

The black void around them was turning into white, sounds repeating, screaming.

“I- I hadn’t known,” That part still hurt, it was probably true, “I shouldn’t have,”

“And why did you?! For the greater good of the world?! What is the world if we don’t care for the people around us?!” Charles asked questions, and got close… closer… He felt so powerful like this. “SHE FUCKING LOVED YOU! SHE LOVED US ALL!”

The white and blacks of the place were not clear. They were not real. The only thing was the red that was coming out of his eyes. He did that. And now he is no longer with them.

“I won’t- I didn’t-” He could not speak, in that situation, Charles was right. He almost always was. The only thing that kept him here.

“I hate you,” No subtext included, he said that straight into his face, “If I could I would kill you, Ceropia, and all the fucking people that let it happen. You should be fucking smiling that I am getting punished by that fucking asshole of a Moth, otherwise this place would become an ancient human ruin.”

He didn’t respond, he just stood and stared at him… scared.

Charles turned around and stepped away, wanting to get out and listen to his last orders… Maybe that would calm him down. He hoped it would be something simple.

~~~

Charles woke up. He heard screaming, panic. He quickly got up and a swarming hit of pain covered his body. His head was moving around, the world swinging there and back. He had to control. To become God.

He took a deep breath, his lungs burning inside and begging for him to stay on the floor. He looked back at the floor, and saw a couple of purple rocks floating slightly above the ground. He picked them up and put them in the bag, they were safe… that is all that mattered.

Some people noticed him, rising up after a giant fall. Others were running around and planning to cause chaos. The boy tried to see if Kim or Hero got down already, they hadn’t…

Barely walking and moving properly, he took out a tiny flask of a lime liquid and popped it open. He drank the whole thing in one sip and threw the glass at the wall behind him. It shattered into pieces.

In seconds, his body felt warmer. His heart rate faster, his breaths and movements better. He could control himself a lot better, his brain not needing to wait nanoseconds before it did something. Charles, turned to the direction of the shooter.

The boy sprinted forward and lept in the air, his legs quicker. He couldn’t see anyone in that place, the shooter was gone, and now Charles was in the middle of the scared crowd. Some of them seemed to be calming down on the sight of him, even if they noticed his unnatural movements and weird speed at which his body was somewhat healing from the floor.

He took out the amulet and slotted the turquoise Gem inside it once again. It locked itself, and showed him a world he would normally be too weak to see.

“I want to speak to the Assistant!” He shouted from the middle of the crowd, destroying everyone’s ears as he was as loud as a speaker.

Charles took another swoop around the place, jumping and running around. He had already forgotten how the figure looked. The guards seemed to be scouring through the people one by one, trying to find the killer.

The shouts had already subsided a bit, many of the people beginning to talk to each other. Charles couldn’t listen to them right now, he had to take control of the city, and save it from the incoming threat.

He was their saviour, he had to do it. It was his mission.

“Zenith,” A calm and collected eloquent sounding voice spoke to him. The boy looked towards him, and saw a man in a somewhat clean suit, and well-combed hair. “We wish to speak to you, there are some things we have to discuss.”

The assistant told him, a tiny smirk revealed itself for a second. Enough for him to catch it with his Lime and Turquoise Gems.

~~~

“Checkmate,” Hero stated, moving his queen and locking Kim’s king in an unwinnable position for her. The battle of two colours was over, and it was once again Kim’s turn to groan in annoyance.

His safe strategy was a lot better than Kim’s more thoughtless one. She knew the moves she was making, but her seemingly random playstyle caused a lot of pieces to be lost, making her entire side weaker.

“Why can’t we go outside or do something more fun than playing an old ass board game?” She asked him, frustrated at wasting time.

“You agreed to it,” Hero reminded her, as he began putting the pieces back into the chess box, “It will come with time,”

“Will it, Henry?” Kim made sure, “Do we even have that time?”

“I am sure,” Henry tried to comfort her, closing the case, “We live with someone that will fix this mess,”

“Yeah- yeah- yeah…” Kim rolled her eyes and stood up, “Charles will fix everything, I am completely sure of it!”

“And what does Miss Smartass think we should do?” Henry teased her, reminding her that they had no plan, or no other plans.

“Get Charles’ bag of these rocks and learn how to use them,” Kim stated, “We would at least be able to help him,”

“That won’t work,” Henry told her plainly, “He has the bag always next to him,”

“He sleeps, and passes out,” Kim replied, “We can tie him up or somethin’ while we have fun exploring the stuff he doesn’t want to tell us.”

“Have you ever thought of why?” Hero answered, “Maybe there is a reason we can’t know more.”

“No, and it doesn’t matter,” Kim caught on quite quickly, “There is more to do than just chess!”

“There will be time for that too,” Hero told her, “You don’t have to do something all the time.”

“And? What is your problem with that?”

“You clearly see!”

“We are more than that,” She shrugged and left the room.

Henry heard her go upstairs. Leaving him with the chess box and nothing to do.

~~~

“And what do you propose, Zenith?” The assistant asked, sitting on a chair in front of him.

The boy was not comfortable here, the white walls were too clean, they weren’t even cracked. The large rooms with lights that had barely any furniture, so much space lost for nothing. Signal Space would never have such a place, but why did this building remind him of home?

The room suddenly turned into the dreaded training range. It quickly disappeared with a single blink.

The large white circular table in the middle blended with the floor, the chairs were the Assistant and the others sat circling it. Everyone was staring at him, once again. He picked this fate though, someone had to.

“We should continue with my plan,” Charles stated, “The president was a public figure, but most of the plan was in our hands.”

“What about his role?” One of the people on his right side questioned that decision, “We will lose control of the city in seconds!”

“We are already losing control sitting here so the faster we finish the better!” Charles retorted, “Besides, I am the public figure right now, we do not have to worry about it.”

“You?” The assistant rose up from his chair, his face emotionless, “A child? I think that today’s show that your skillset isn’t to be fully trusted.”

“So, what do you propose?” Zenith asked, wanting to stand up as well, but sitting seemed like a calmer option.

“Since I was the president’s assistant, it is logical that I should take his role,” He was completely devoid of emotion, it freaked Charles out. He couldn’t get a read on him, what if… no…

“You already have duties, I finished mine today,” Charles added in, “We found many buildings around us, but also a group of unknown entities seems to be moving towards us.”

“I can give my work to someone else if it is needed,” The assistant shrugged, “On the other hand, your ‘powers’ can be helpful to others, especially that you seem to know a lot more about this world than we do.”

“Maybe we should have an election then,” Charles shrugged, opening everyone’s eyes wide open. He stood up from his chair, feeling a bit stronger than before, and turned his back to them.

“One more question, Zenith,” One of the people in the room asked, “When will the monsters come?”

“Two weeks, maybe three,” Charles stated, wanting to leave the place already, “I will update you guys on that front.”

And then he left, happy to come back to the two of his friends.

~~~

Hero knocked on Kim’s door, she hadn’t left her room in a while now. He didn’t really know what she was doing, but he felt kind of bad for what had happened after that chess game. Both of them have been stressed out to the maximum, and that game brought him some humanity back. Something he desperately needed.

“Come on in,” Kim quietly said, or the door muffled her voice.

Hero opened the door, its hinges soundless. He saw Kim, sitting on her bed, staring at the purple Gem floating in the air. She didn’t even move, only her breathing showing that she was alive. He approached her, and sat next to her, looking at the Gem.

“I don’t think we are coming back home, Hero,” Kim said, not even waiting for him to say anything, “I- I still- I-”

“Why can’t you wait for him to show himself more?” Hero asked, understanding what Kim was feeling, but not really wanting to feel that.

“He’ll never do that, old man,” She grinned and picked up the Gem from the bed, before throwing it towards the wall.

Hero jumped off of the bed, wanting to catch it, but was not able to. The Gem stopped just right before hitting the wall and floating gracefully down onto the bottom, shining a lot more than it was before. Kim got off of the bed and snatched it from the floor.

“Have you noticed that when Charles jumped to his fucking death, he was using purple Gems,” She tried to spin the Gem but it quickly fell down onto the ground. “The colours of the hook I was using were different,”

Hero took the Gem that was casually floating around, shining a bit, and threw it at the ceiling as fast as he could. The Gem - flung into the sky - glowed stronger and stopped itself before hitting the wall above. He caught it before it started to calmly drift down.

“I wonder if you can somehow…” Hero began thinking, “Lift anything up with this Gem somehow…”

“We have the time for that,” She shrugged and smiled, “Just don’t break it, or don’t snitch to that overworked dumbass,”

The door opened at that exact moment, timed perfectly with her words. Hero put the Gem back into one of the shelves, and the two of them slowly walked downstairs to meet up with him.

“Do you think I am right?” Hero asked quietly, whispering.

“Not yet,” She replied, “Maybe once he stops being that… It’s hard to describe,”

Hero nodded, knowing what she meant. The two of them went downstairs, to see Charles sitting on the couch and just resting. Hero sat next to him, while Kim sat on one of the chairs, both of them were looking at him.

Charles - tired and exhausted by the entire day - rolled his eyes, figuring out what they wanted.

“Can’t you guys give me a break for today?!” He replied, and moved his head the other way. Charles could hear someone stand up and leave the room. It was only one pair though.

He slowly turned around, to see Hero taking a deep breath and standing up as well. He - instead of leaving like Kim did - he picked up a box… a Chess set.

“Want to play?” Hero asked, opening the box and putting the pieces in their starting positions before Charles could answer.

Chapter Text

Sunny left Hero’s house. The retelling of his events came to a stop as the elderly man they sometimes call Henry went back to slumber. Something that he still… He didn’t want to risk it. A bit of jealousy made the shine glow slightly stronger than it was supposed to.

The boy put his hand in the pocket, before closing the door to Hero’s and Kel’s house. He could feel the black eyepatch Charles gave him, in case he wanted to hide the eye. Whatever it was.

Kim and Hero told him that Charles was just like that… but Kel and Aubrey knew something that he didn’t know as well. The story they were telling was… hard to hear. Especially that he was not mentally ready for Aubrey’s part.

He had already scheduled it, and so it was too late to go back. He had to learn the past, before the present would catch up to them. Before that little kid would come back… Cyzor, that was his name.

As Sunny began walking around the rebuilding streets of FarVoid, he saw smiles that he couldn’t mimic. Everyone was staring or glancing at him, even Data (why he used the nickname instead of his real name, he didn’t know) or the crowbar guy he spoke to beforehand couldn’t stop themselves from making him feel like an alien.

Which… he kind of was.

He felt different, since he was… reborn. Brought back, to go through the pain of life again.

His friends were luckily too depressed and worried about the end of the world to look at him and see that he was still in as much pain as he had been before.

His train of thought was disturbed by the sounds of the FarVoid main street, Endless st. All of the houses connected to this street, well all of the framework. Many people still slept in tents, broken storage containers, or in the lab. Only some places survived the attack.

And it was his fault.

Again.

Nonetheless, self-pity was something he couldn’t do right now, he had time for that later. The road he was walking on was similar to the forest path, reminding him of the picnics and happier moments of his… past life. The houses were made out of “sped up” sapling, as Data and Marco worked tirelessly to get more wood without destroying more of the forest around  them.

It had already been burned in the crossfire.

The wood of the houses looked like burned up oak, as the greyish substance left its mark on the tree. The entire village - if you could call it that - was gathering around to help others build. They didn’t seem… as depressed as they were before, maybe a more human looking place would make them happier.

But… Cyzor would return.

The thought of him, and the thought of anyone else dying, caused him to dash and almost bump into someone. He quickly apologised, not even hearing the response, as he went to one of the only houses that was saved from the fighting.

He could see a tired but familiar figure, standing at the front door, with her bat… waiting to tell her part of the story.

<~~~>

Entry 13 - Hello, this is Prin writing here. The boy woke up today, and he is clearly not in a good state of mind. The fact that he almost died, saw his parents die in front of him, and then woke up in a place like this is something even the strongest adults would understand and comprehend quickly, especially with different creatures like Feloids around. Looking at Ceropia made him faint almost instantly… It is going quite better than we thought. He can’t talk yet, but he is not suicidal. I think he is a good kid.

<~~~>

Aubrey approached Kel, he was sitting on the ash-filled floor, staring further than she could see. Ash particles were falling from the sky; its source, the fading nebula above. Her friend was static, he didn’t move or notice that she had come here. 

Since the sun fell down, he had been detached from the world from what she had noticed. At least he had his family, Hero and Sally and his parents to support him through the fact that his best friend died. Their best friend.

She sat down next to him, putting her bat on her lap, as the rainbow yoyo was tightly in his right hand. Its rainbow shimmer made her a bit calmer than before.

Kel didn’t react to her, in any way, leaving herself with her thoughts alone. She wanted to spiral into anger and frustration, to cry for help again and again, but she was too tired to cry into the abyss. She was too tired to say anything, to think about anything. Her sadness was not strong enough to make her go through a couple of stages of grief again. 

Thinking about the end of the world, of the end of everything she had, was too much. The only she had left was her bat, her friend and her dead friend’s broken mother. It wasn’t something that she would choose if she could, but it didn’t seem like she had any say or choice in this matter.

The ash continued to fall down, there were no sounds coming from the void of the world that was this place. Her thoughts wandered to her friends again, this time not sad, but worried about what was happening to them right now. She hoped that all of them would somehow find a safe place, and that one day she would be able to see them again. That was the only thing she could believe in after all, everything else completely broke down a day ago.

“Does this even matter Aubrey?” The silence was broken by Kel, asking in a voice that could have been called a whisper compared to how loud Kel was normally. 

He was still eyeing the couple floating islands in front of them, and the dust that was falling onto their heads. Confused, the girl looked at him, and the yoyo.

“What specifically?” She answered with a question. 

She could see a barely visible shake, before sighing and continuing to stare into the distance. Aubrey couldn’t hear the footsteps of the broken woman yet, something she desperately needed to get out of this saddening conversation. She could still remember the party and Basil and the shouting and the days before. 

It seemed so distant now, everything seemed so far away.

“Everything,” Kel responded louder than before, his voice lacking any emotion that would indicate his grief and his inside thoughts. “Anything we do, can just lead to this.” He showed the void with his hand. 

His voice broke, small tears fell down onto the ash, before it disappeared. The salt stayed on the rocks, silence ensuing. Aubrey… was not willing to say an answer. Her mind still stuck in the past… frozen.

“Instead of spending the last months of my life with my family, I just… did nothing.” Kel tried to say it coherently, his throat was burning, the grip on the yoyo was stronger than before. He wanted to throw it as hard as possible. 

“I will never see them again.” He could feel the ocean in his mind slowly leaking through his eyes, as it became more evident that the world had shattered in front of them.

The girl silently held his shaking hands, sitting next to him. They both needed comfort, any warmth. The nebula, as shiny as it was, didn’t seem to give off any heat. Maybe they would feel once they were closer to the eye and its surface. Ash-like grey particles were falling onto them, moved by their voices and sobs.

“We,” she began saying something. 

Coherence and thinking was out of the question, as it was too much. This reality hadn't fully set in. If they reasonably could, she would act as if nothing had happened. They couldn’t though, she knew that staying here would only hurt them more. 

“We’ll find them,” She continued slowly and carefully, trying to sound as comforting as she could. “If they are still alive, we can probably find them with this… thing…” she pointed at the glowing yoyo in front of them, “We will find everyone, and make a new home…”

A fake promise. She didn’t believe it again. She had lived in a wasteland for years, and this place would not be too different. It saddened her that the only thing she could trust right now, was a glowing magic rock. That was their only hope. It scared her and also calmed her own ocean of grief for a bit, the waves getting smaller than before.

“How do you know?” His broken voice spoke to her again, asking her for an answer she couldn’t give, at least an answer that was true. 

She thought and waited for the woman to come to them. Even if Kel needed comfort, she couldn’t say anything. Aubrey felt her hands not being able to stay still, his heart aching and rushing. She wanted to go home, she wanted to wake up. She wanted to… 

She never thought she would miss it that much. The silence was getting more grey than the dust gathering on the fallen tree behind them, and so she answered.

“Everything is gone, you said so yourself, and everyone we know is dead, right? So why not try to do something that we could fail at, no one will know if we fail.” Aubrey whispered back, as two childhood friends stared into the distance, waiting for something to happen… 

A moment later, two of them could hear footsteps of someone coming. They were still sobbing lightly, and their movement was irregular. Steps were out of sync, out of any rhythm or pattern. Aubrey was the first one to stand up - holding her bat tightly in hand. 

Sunny’s Mother turned to them and looked down at the floor, not willing to show her eyes. Kel, noticing that they could finally go, jumped up and wiped his tears off his face. The yoyo in his hand, he stood at the edge and threw it.

The spinning ball glowed red and purple, while the lime green string that Kel held very tightly spun forward. The glowing device was shinier than the nebula above. Leaving them and the ash behind. After the yoyo had reached the island. A small red hook formed at the end of the string, shocking Kel as it was suddenly too heavy to hold. 

He dropped it, the vibrant red anchor hit the ground and dug into it. 

The string slowly changed its colour into purple, making a weird floating string. Kel could feel himself weakening even more, as he stumbled back onto the ground. Sunny’s Mother stood by as Aubrey tried to pull him up. Kel wouldn’t be surprised as the string suddenly grew red and purple rectangles on the side, making a bridge.

“Is this stable?” Aubrey questioned, eyeing the yoyo bridge that was somehow floating in the dusty air. 

Kel shrugged, before taking a step back and looking at the rainbow bridge.

Aubrey was the first one to step on the bridge. Her footsteps made a sound of some kind of clean crystal getting hit as if it was an instrument. The floating bridge didn’t move or shake or react to her standing on it. Her heart began to race as she walked on it. Below she could see more dust, barren islands and an endless void. 

She gulped before hearing some movements behind her. As the teen girl turned around, the uneasiness and closeness to falling caused her stressed mind to continue losing it. One wrong step, and she probably would be dead.

Kel and Adra were getting onto the platform, making sure that the glass-looking bridge won’t break beneath their feet. Aubrey took a deep breath, and began walking forward, trying to coax them two into coming with her.

They followed, walking as safely as they could, on what felt like a tightrope. The rainbow sky glimmering above them reminded them of how scary and completely empty the world below was. They could only see dust, falling and never coming back.

The trio silently - their minds fully focused on not losing sight of their path - walked by a couple of floating islands that were nearby, but not where Kel had aimed… well he probably hadn’t aimed…

The roughly ten minutes of walking on the rainbow crystal, felt like they lasted hours. Their hearts were racing and their muscles were tighter than they should have been. Aubrey didn’t feel this overwhelming sense of stress piling up on her once again before she stood on the closest thing to the stable ground they had.

The nebula above them was spinning as it was before, eternal, unchanging.

They didn’t know how long it took them to get to the end, but once they were there, they spotted that their yoyo turned into a bigger anchor by the end of the bridge, digging into the rock more than the other anchor. Aubrey waited on the tiny island, the image of the house barely visible as the only thing she could see was the dying grass. 

The moment Kel touched the crystal, the colourful Gem reacted by concentrating all of its rainbow colours on the anchor. They could see the bridge fold back on itself, as it rolled into a yoyo. The change in shape was… impossible.

Kel - with his yoyo in hand - stood at the edge of the tiny platform they were on. His steps threw some tiny pebbles off into the abyss. The dust falling onto the Crystal was instantly eviscerated, or repelled. They couldn’t see, as the change was too miniscule to matter.

Kel closed one of his eyes and threw the yoyo to the closest island this time. After a wheeze and a very well-aimed shot, he could see the actual anchor on the other side, glowing brightly before the bridge would be created. The string opened up again, turning into a walkable structure. Kel, this time, would be the one going in front.

Less unsure than before, he took a step onto the physically impossible bridge, Aubrey followed him.

The two teens quickly walked to the halfway point across the second death bridge. Aubrey, even if she didn’t feel the anxiety she had felt before, was still walking with her bat ready. Ready to punch or attack someone or something that could potentially endanger them. 

While they walked, further and further away from the island, she realised that the third pair of footsteps was missing. 

She turned around - again - to see the woman stare still at the house. Standing… like a statue.

“We have to go,” Aubrey stated, trying to wake her up from stasis. 

She took a step towards her, not certain if she should actually go grab her arm and pull her. The teen girl’s pink hair moved, as dust fell off her head and onto the shining bridge in between flying islands; before turning into nothing. 

“We HAVE to go,” Aubrey repeated, speeding up towards the woman.

Kel, hearing Aubrey coming back, began walking back as well. Not eager to leave his friends behind. The statue finally moved. Their eyes met, both of them were similar in ways Aubrey would not see, both of them were filled with nothing but an ocean of incomprehensible emotions.

“I can’t,” Adra replied, her voice less broken than before, “I can’t leave this place again.” She whispered. 

Aubrey looked at her - slightly confused before realising what she meant. She didn’t answer, at least not until Kel jumped back onto the grey rock, bumping into Aubrey who had turned her head away from Adra’s empt eyes.

“It won’t change anything,” Aubrey just said, without any emotion in her voice. “There is no reason to stay there, or come back ever again.” 

The older woman closed her eyes, took a long deep breath, and slowly nodded. Both Aubrey and Kel noticed her… repulsion to the idea of going further on. Her movements were still a little stiff and surprisingly slow, as if she didn’t notice she was one step away from death. To the two teens, it looked like she was stuck in a trance.

The bridge was as stable as before.

Static, but colourful.

They walked in the night sky. 

Three shattered moons looking at them, reflecting the light of the bridge and the nebula, barely seen by the three. The sky lacked any stars, dust continued to fall down from the top, wherever it was. Maybe the Nebula, spinning up above, was the cause of it? 

It seemed to come out of nowhere, plaguing the sky and making it less visible than it normally would be. No other source than the phenomena happening above them, was visible… at least to them.

As they walked, waited and threw another bridge, going in the approximate direction of the glowing compass, the boring loop of it caused things to spring up in Aubrey’s mind. She tried not to think about things that would make her cry and fall onto the crystals, that made some weird xylophone-like noises, below. 

The fact that they could breathe and talk in this place like back home was kind of weird. The dust was similar to snow in its speed, if not a bit faster. The fact that inhaling it was not harmful in any way made her question the nature of this world. 

Was this place really as bad as it looked?

During one of the shorter bridges, Aubrey thought she saw silhouettes of small flying things, above in the sky.

She had fully stopped, and was ready to smash those unknown space creatures with her bat…

Luckily, or not, they didn’t see them.

Birds, maybe… 

It was possible though, they had already seen an Ant’s nest on one of the tiny islands - even though it was cut in half and most of the ants were lying dead on the floor - and there were a couple tinier beetles or very tiny patches of disembodied grass and flowers. 

Aubrey took one, just to remember about Basil. It seemed a lot more dead than the flower she stole from him. Everything that was somewhat normal to them, was cut or…. They quickly went by them, as thinking about their recent past was something she just… wanted to push away.

Suddenly, on one of the bridges, she heard Kel shout something incomprehensible. The tone of his voice was a lot more akin to the one she had heard back… home. 

She smiled, hearing that his spark was not lost. He was standing at the centre of the tiny island they had bridged to, the island was slightly bigger than the previous one, the radius being about three metres long. Kel was pointing at something, while looking there and back at them.

“LOOK!” The energy of his voice overpowering the enveloping darkness around them. 

Adra and Aubrey ran to him, a glimmer of hope beginning to beam into them. Their hearts were more excited than they had been before. Aubrey was the first one to catch up to him, as she had jumped to the side (risking her life for a short moment) and stood next to her childhood friend. Adra caught up to them a few seconds later, huffing quickly.

They could barely see a massive island in the dust. The edge of it was invisible. It was surprising, and a good sign that the new world wasn’t made only out of floating particles and tiny islands scattered around seemingly randomly in the empty void. Sure, the small part of it they saw looked completely barren, but it was enough for now.

Kel speedily ran up to the anchor, and pulled it. The bridge retracted itself and went back into its yoyo form. The glowing toy was thrown towards the island of a hopefully better walking environment without Kel even trying to aim. The three didn’t have to wait long for the next - and hopefully final - bridge to be built. 

While Kel wanted to sprint towards it, the fear of slipping and falling down into the endless void, kept his excitement at bay. The fear of falling onto… something… from this height-

Aubrey felt her stomach suddenly turn, a large weight hitting her body as the image of broken bones and skin showed itself on one of the islands dark below. The face of the familiar corpse dark and lifeless, blood painting the rock red. Its limbs deformed, its fingers turned in unnatural directions. 

She saw its open eyes looking at her, staring at her from below. Its lips curving to form a smile that was laughing straight at her, mocking her. 

She failed. 

The weight pulled her down into the ocean. She could feel the world itself slipping away from her grasp, as if the body below had reminded her of… something… someone… 

She could not hear her breath losing its purpose as she fell down onto the crystals, making a sound of a broken piano being slammed in fury and desperation.

The teen girl could not feel her heart race, her legs weaken and her eyes slowly closing as she was losing breath. Her tears were falling down onto the crystals and the dead body below.

The only thing that lingered was the image - of him - dead next to her. 

The world turned into darkness, one that she would not want to wake up to.

~~~

Kel didn’t know what to do when Aubrey fell head first onto the bridge. 

It was so sudden, that he ran to her as fast as he could - bumping and almost throwing Sunny’s Mother off the bridge - and tried to comfort the hyperventilating girl. She didn’t react to his movement, muttering something and barely breathing in any air. 

Kel took the colourful bat that was slipping off her hand, aimed at the void below, and gave it to Sunny’s Mother, who was standing behind him in shock. Her eyes were wide open, as she glanced down at the dead body of someone else below.

Kel seeing both of their reactions, put Aubrey on the centre of the platform, instead of letting her stay this close to the edge. 

He waited… and waited… standing still on the platform. Each second making his heart beat quicker and quicker as he realised how high above… anything he was.

The boy finally decided to look down below; a dead body of a person was visible… His organs were still able to spew out crimson blood onto the dusty ground.

His stomach turned, as he almost lost his balance and instinctively stepped back. His mouth could already feel an acidic mixture go up his neck.

Luckily, he didn’t puke.

Adra, who was standing a bit further back with the bat, was looking at Kel, almost vomiting the party food he had consumed. With no way to track time, Kel didn’t wait more minutes or seconds or moments. He grabbed Aubrey’s somewhat limp body, and began walking with the weight.

They approached the giant island quite quickly, mostly due to Kel not knowing how long he could carry the girl for. The island looked… barren to say the least. The lack of any life visible, any buildings or trees, or anything that could resemble home, made the two of them kind of disappointed.

There were no patches of green grass he was so accustomed to, no bugs or shouting kids in the playground. Everything was a barren wasteland, covered by grey dust that was already getting to annoy him. As he was putting Aubrey down, to grab the Rainbow Gem back into his hand, he looked up.

The nebula was still spinning. Even if they may have moved closer to it, the difference was so small that he didn’t really see it himself. The nebula was not fully visible, as many floating islands were above the giant one they were standing on. Similar to the ones they had just left.

It… freaked him out the more he thought about it. The constants in his life - like gravity - were completely gone or changed… unnatural. The fact these rocks were in air was not magical but alien.

There was no sun, the moon had tripled into three and shattered. Day and night didn’t matter anymore, it never would again.

Kel saw Adra standing on the last parts of the bridge. Her face was lightened up by the bright colours of the nebula and hidden in the dust that was covering their sky. She didn’t smile, but she also didn’t cry. Her eyes were still red, and her breaths sometimes shook more than they normally would, but… it was almost as if she was normal.

For a single moment, he smiled, knowing that the probably last moments of his life - how long they possibly could be - would be spent with people that he could consider family. He still felt tired, exhausted, confused and overwhelmed. But it didn’t matter.

The nebula would continue the spin, the world would continue to lose its past shape.

He could change nothing, and he would change nothing.

It calmed him down, knowing that he couldn’t have stopped what had happened.

Kel, kicking some stones off the platform into the void, took out the rainbow anchor like the many times before and held onto it tightly.

The yoyo contracted into itself in an eyeblink. The bridge turned itself into an almost normal looking stone that was easily held by Kel in his hand. He squeezed it tight, knowing that this stone might be their last hope. Adra stood behind him with the bat in hand, its colours slightly losing their vividness… probably because of the grey dust around them.

Kel looked at Adra, before taking a deep breath and…

“Show us where our friends are,” Kel whispered to the magical rock. 

It responded with a rainbow flash, before turning back into the compass. 

The compass was now a lot different and more detailed. Instead of being a boring rainbow glowing compass with a colourful and glowing needle in the middle and the directions embroidered onto it, the sides were now less smooth and very distinct. There were four quarters, each of them seemed to represent a different thing.

The top left one was green, tiny crystal-leaves and branches hanging off of it. The top right one was red, small swords and blades (some of them burning) were sticking out. The bottom right one was white, different animals, most of which he didn’t recognise, were looking at each other. The bottom left one was blue and cyan, fish and water clearly shown. The insides were mostly the same, with the embroidered letters being a lot shinier, more vibrant and more visible than they had been the first time.

“Wow,” He stated out loud, stunned at the tool in his hand. 

Kel was brought out of his detailed look at their new direction, by a tired groan and a loud shout of his friend. 

He - and the older woman who was playing with the bat in hand a moment ago - were looking at Aubrey waking up and seeing that her dream was not in fact something she misremembered. 

The girl looked shocked, her red eyes shaking. Her breath didn’t turn into a gasping one though. Kel decided to stay silent, acting as if he was still enamoured by the crystal’s new form. Aubrey silently took the bat from Adra (leaving Adra sad and empty handed), wiping the ash-dust away from her weapon and smiling a little.

“So… what do we do now?” The girl with the pink hair asked, looking at the compass in awe, as the compass needle was pointing north-west, slightly more towards the north. 

The needle was glowing quite strongly, more than previously.

“We follow the thingy and get to see our friends!” Kel explained with a voice that was uncannily similar to the one he used normally. 

He didn’t wait for an answer, as the boy quickly began moving forward while keeping his eyes in front of the compass. Aubrey had to interrupt with a more serious manner, at least for them.

“I think food and water should be-” She responded, at least tried, as Adra interrupted her.

“I packed some…” The woman said quietly, whispering, showing a backpack with a couple of sandwiches that she had made and a couple bottles of water she had taken from somewhere in the house. 

Aubrey rolled her eyes, ignoring the alien and clearly real surroundings.

“How do we know that we will be able to find them in the next couple of days?” Aubrey asked, the further the question went on, the quieter her voice got. Kel eyed her, looking straight at her eyes and seeing them shake. 

They stood in silence, frozen in time for a second. 

Kel glanced back at the compass, he turned his back against the two others, ignoring the question outright. His mouth opened, and then closed without anything being let out, even if the two of them didn’t see it.

“Do you have a better plan?” The past athlete asked, his giddy tone gone.

He wanted to fall down and cry, he wanted to stutter and sob, he wanted to show that he agreed with Aubrey. And yet, there was a part of him that still clung onto this past fabric of friends and life. He couldn’t let it go, not so fast.

“N- no?” Aubrey stuttered, stepping towards Kel who upon hearing her getting closer, moved one step closer.

The compass needle shone brighter than it had before.

“I just do not think this is viable at all,” Aubrey continued, her voice not getting quieter like with the question.

Adra didn’t say anything as Kel responded.

“This place is massive, Kel.” The compass needle was glowing… “We won’t be able to find them, even with some food and water in a bag.”

As Kel ignored Aubrey, taking one step forward after another, Adra began following him…

A tiny thing was moving towards them… quickly.

The compass needle began shining more furiously and viciously than the nebula swirling above.

The spec of dust in the distance - the silhouette of something - was growing quicker and quicker.

Aubrey and Adra stood next to Kel, not believing that they were actually hearing some music and… wheels?

The chaotic electro pop (or funk; whatever it was), was something they hadn’t expected to hear coming from a shadow. The ash-like particle revealed itself to be a car. And not any car, a mini-truck.

The vehicle didn’t take a long time to reveal itself completely. 

And the people inside… did seem-

“Vance?” Aubrey whispered to herself a bit louder than she realised.

Kel’s eyes were going from the compass to the incoming car as the compass was clearly pointing at it.

The wheels of the speeding vehicle were kicking away the dust and moving on the uneven surface that was this rock. The music playing didn’t fit Vance, yet she saw one more figure she had never expected to see beforehand.

Eyes fell out of her eyes, as her emotionless face turned into a large smile, one that she had not felt before for a very very long while.

The red and black painted car stood out from the crowd of the colourless desert. The windows and headlights didn’t seem in the best shape, but it didn’t matter, the car itself never would.

The car stopped in front of them, the wheels screeching a little as they were brought to a stop.

“VANCE!” The younger girl was finally able to shout, “MIKHAEL!”

With her bat in hand, she rushed towards them, hopping at them and taking them out of the vehicle! She hugged both of them, 

Her face turned into a wide smile as they mumbled something before returning the hug. Kel not wanting to miss it, joined in… although he was a bit late.

“I- Seeing you guys… Yeah…” Was the only thing anyone could hear from Vance’s mumbling, as he left the hug.

The awkward hug turned into a moment of silence as the trio stared at the truck and its current owners.

“I never thought I would…” Aubrey began, but she didn’t have to continue as she closed her mouth before finishing.

“Do you think we thought we would find anyone…?” Mikhael asked, smiling a bit more than he probably realised.

Kel, put the compass in his pocket, realising that he has been holding onto it. He then walked up to the car, while Adra stayed silently in the back, not knowing what to do with herself.

“How did you find this?” Kel asked, touching the car and making sure it was real.

That this was not a dream.

“I do not know,” the graffiti boy replied, “but Vance had found me while I was busy painting the rocky ground of this… place. I wanted to make a magnum opus if the world had become… this…”

Mikhael pointed at the emptiness around them, as if Kel had not noticed the wasteland before. He jumped into the car, and stared at the athlete down below to do the same.

“I didn’t know you had a car like this,” Aubrey - still in shock- exclaimed. 

Surprised, she went around the car which was roughly painted black and red with graffiti. If the dust wasn’t everywhere, maybe it would have looked a little cleaner. A name was painted onto it, Wheels of Chaos . 

“Mikhael’s idea?” She asked, pointing at the name and how rough the letters looked. Vance nodded before replying to the girl.

“Yeah… I kind of stole it,” Vance confessed, swinging his car keys left and right, as he held them on his finger in the air. 

The metallic sound was a lot worse than the sound of the crystal bridge. Adra moved towards the teens, holding onto her backpack aimlessly. She tried not to be seen, alas it didn’t work. 

“And who is that woman?” He asked, pointing straight at her.

“That is Sunny’s mom, she is kind of with us now,” Aubrey answered, as she jumped onto the back of the car. 

She could hear Kel and Mikhael talk about something in the background, but she was not interested enough to eavesdrop them. 

“We wouldn’t leave someone to die, even if we do not know each other well.” Vance shrugged, and began walking to the front of the vehicle.

“I have met a couple of people already,” Vance muttered, looking over to the car, “Most of them tried to steal the car and were not too friendly.”

“And what is… y’know…” Aubrey stuttered for a bit, trying to find the right words. She quickly gave up on trying to make the situation sound better than it actually was. She could see Vance’s red eyes, even if she hadn’t eyed them for too long. “Your plan? Do you have one?”

“Nah,” He confirmed what she had predicted it would be. He stood with his back against the car door, looking over to the girl he was talking to. “Just trying to enjoy myself.”

“We might have something that might… help us make one.” Aubrey shrugged as well, trying to mimic the chill vibe of Vance that she lacked. 

Her eyes concentrated on the rainbow compass that Mikhael was looking at, his face clearly confused. Although, he was nodding along to what Kel was blabbering about to him. 

“We - I mean Kel and I - will explain it soon, we probably want to get going.” She added in, making sure he understood something he already probably did. 

Vance, not replying verbally this time, shrugged and jumped back into the mini-truck. The engine roared for a slight second, as the car began to let out fumes worse than the ash that had been falling down from the top.

“Sit in the front Adra!” Aubrey shouted out loud, trying to fight the engine roars. Adra, very slowly and quietly, walked to the other side of the vehicle, before entering it and sitting on the second front seat. She tried to pull the seat belt but sadly it didn’t work.

“The ones at the back ready?” Vance turned around and asked, Aubrey gave him an excited thumbs-up and the wheels of chaos began to ride into the distant void. 

The compass needle was already pointing towards another direction, its glow dim. Dust continued to fall from the sky and from the islands above, as the car was the only thing moving in the barren landscape of this place. Vance, who was driving, sometimes slowed down and made sure he didn’t drive into any big holes, not wanting to lose his passengers at the back.

Aubrey’s bubblegum hair was moving quicker than the car, catching dust and letting it go. 

She felt comforted by the fact that she was with her friends. 

She could close her eyes and feel something else than dread or stress. 

The girl glanced back at her friends.

At Mikhael, who was holding onto the colourful compass and touching its four sides.

At Vance, who was clearly trying to start up a conversation with Adra.

At Adra, who was still holding onto that flower and pot.

At Kel, who was… Kel.

She took a long sigh, and smiled. She was content that these moments were ones that she could spend with her friends. And maybe, with the help of that magic rock, they could find a new home.

Her mind let her slip back into sleep, with the thought that the world hasn’t ended yet.

Chapter Text

Entry 24 - Hello, this is Prin writing here.

I haven’t been writing a lot about the boy for the past couple of entries due to the fact that there were more prominent things happening at hand, but he is doing better and better. He seems to be very interested in what we are doing, probably because it takes his mind off the actual mental problems he is facing.

He is a bright mind, for a young teen like him, I expected everything about this to be out of his field. And yet, it seems like he must have been quite an educated one. Maybe he could be the first younglin’ on this large ship we are building.

<~~~>

“So, what you are telling me, is that this rainbow rock can tell us accurately wherever we want to go?” Vance repeated one more time. His eyes were looking at the compass that was in Kel’s hand. 

They had been driving for three hours straight, with nothing in sight. Just dust, and more dust. With headlights on and the window sometimes having to be cleaned by the windshield wipers, the mini-truck was probably one of the best ways to move in this kind of roadless and rough landscape. 

Most of the place was a completely barren wasteland, with small - dead - wildlife spread apart, as well as random items that were on the floor. Kel insisted that they pick up everything, and so now there was a dusty bucket and a single wooden stick bouncing up and down, breaking the silence when no one was talking.

Adra was sitting against the metal wall that was in between her and the front seats of the car. Aubrey was next to her, looking through the window that made Mikhael and Vance visible to them without jumping out of the speeding vehicle. Kel was on the other side of the truck, looking out at the dust the wheels propelled up into the air and the places they may have left behind. 

The woman was staring at Aubrey and Kel, listening to their conversations and trying to know how they actually interacted. She didn’t open her mouth, just listen to what those two were about. Her eyes sometimes drifted off into the nebula and the dust that was raining on them.

She found solace in the particles, reminding her of the snow back home.

“I heard that you guys partied without me,” Vance changed the topic of conversation. 

Adra’s ears perked up a bit, wanting to hear something that didn’t concern this world and its… magic. She quickly realised that listening to the conversation might be a bit weird. In response, she moved to the other side of the truck, still not far enough not to hear them talking.

“Yeah… We did,” Aubrey confirmed, showing off her colourful bat that was still perfectly intact. 

The teen girl blew at it, making the ash that had stuck onto it, fly into the dust-filled air. The car, quickly moving forward through the desolate landscape, lost the tiny dust cloud in the sea of it. She swung her bat once more, before putting it away.

The dusty air - as annoying and dirty as it was - was perfectly cold. It wasn’t cold enough to make her shiver and shake, but it was not hot enough for her to desperately need some kind of ice or cold drink.

“I also heard that-” Vance continued before stopping himself, grumbling a bit. 

Aubrey’s eyes turned to the bat once again. Its vivid colours and the fact that it was brand new, made her remember all of the friends she had mere hours ago. A sombre note played in her head, giving her goosebumps.

“Do you like it?” Mikhael asked, “The design I mean,” he added in, his voice slightly quieter. 

He hid in his front seat a bit, while one of the wheels just went slightly more up than the rest. There were too many small hills for Vance to dodge, and after a couple of minutes of driving very slowly, Aubrey and Kel told him that he could drive faster. Adra had silently agreed.

“It's beautiful,” Aubrey smiled, looking at him. 

She spun it around in her hand and looked at the rough patterns that were graffitied onto it. Holding tight onto the weapon, she realised that there was this fear she had, just disappeared. Mikhael - with a little bit of a delay, smiled back, before continuing to look at the endless road forward.

Silence ensued, the only sounds were the ones of the bucket and wheels kicking pebbles, gravel, sand and dust away. Their tracks behind them quickly disappeared, as the dust covered the floor up with a new layer of grey. The light of the rainbow compass, tilting and showing the way, together with the mini-truck’s headlights gave enough light to see the path forward, although the nebula was probably helping them with that. 

A roadtrip in the darkness, the passengers and drivers still processing the world around them… or lack thereof. Aubrey began hitting the dust with her bat, while Kel and Adra looked outside to find any remains of the world they had left behind.

The road trip would continue, and the dread of this maybe being their last days alive didn’t set in yet.

“STOP!” Kel suddenly jumped, running to the ones in the front. 

The vehicle screeched to a halt, before moving back a little. 

Kel, while he held the compass that was guiding them towards their destination, jumped out of the back of the vehicle and sprinted towards what seemed like nothing. Aubrey squinted her eyes and went to the edge of the truck. She couldn’t see what Kel had actually found. 

Kel - after a couple of steps - suddenly stopped and knelt down to the floor. The boy grabbed something from the cold stone floor and ran back to them. Then, Kel sprinted and leapt inside the back of the vehicle, holding a tiny metal object in his hand. It was bouncing the shine of the nebula onto the floor of the mini-van.

“A penny?” Aubrey asked, as Kel threw it into the bucket. Clinks and clanks of the bouncing coin were heard by everyone in the mini-van. Vance - who didn’t want to wait a bit - already began accelerating the vehicle. It was on the road once again, kicking away the pebbles in its rush.

“Yep” Kel shrugged, walking towards the bucket full of random items.

“I can’t believe that the most useful thing we have found is a bucket.” She pointed at the clanking bucket that now was filled with a single penny inside. “How did you even see a small penny?”

“I saw a short tiny flash on the ground when it was reflecting my crystal,” Kel explained, “Besides, don’t be too cruel to the penny! A bucket is so useful… It will be hard to beat!” He argued, sitting in front of Aubrey. 

As Kel sat down, hugging the cold metal bucket in his hands, Aubrey sat down by his side… She stared into the distant world. The world around them that was static and dark, abandoned by the Sun itself. The nebula - even if beautiful - felt more alien than the ball of light they had grown up with.

If they had looked up, they would have a small glimpse of three purple shattered moons looking at them, as if they were creatures by themselves. They were almost covered by the giant storm…

Adra - on the other side of the truck - was staring at the kids. Kel and Aubrey, trying to find some comfort in their own company. Vance and Mikhael, who seemed not to care about this situation.

She felt empty inside, as empty as the world outside was.

All of this felt alien…

Fake…

~~~

He held the knob of the radio and tilted it very - very - gently, while eyeing the TV he had turned on. 

With a single twist, millions of different images appeared and disappeared in the blink of an eye. 

The image he had stopped on, was one that showed a single tree. The tree looked like it was made out of rock and nothing else. Its trunk had a visibly rough texture, and the “wood” that it was made of was replaced by a very smooth dark grey stone. There were very bright colourful lights above it, shining down at its frozen leaves, but nothing that would help him to find his friends.

Sunny, disappointed and frustrated, looked up at the sky and tried to make sense of the colours above him. 

They weren’t controlled by anything, or by any rules it seemed. They were just there to show that this place had an end, that it wasn’t an infinite void he would be stuck in for the rest of his life… even if that is what he deserved.

He looked back at the swing, seeing it move a little… as if someone else was here.

“Can I get sunglasses?” He muttered, his voice barely working and his throat already burning itself alive. 

It always shocked him that Kel could talk so much without stopping or letting himself breathe. 

Kel… 

Sunny instantly looked for a distraction in the rainbow void that was this place. 

He eyed the radio once again, before he felt something plastic fall onto his head. He ruffled his hair, before noticing in front of him a pair of sunglasses he had asked for. 

Sunny knelt down - his back hurting a bit - and put them on. The lights were a lot more bearable this way.

The boy sat down on the couch. Its very fluffy insides and outsides made it probably as comfortable as a 9/10 bed. Still not perfect, but close to it. He could already feel himself going to sleep, even with his intake of coffee… He yawned already, his eyes slightly tired and his consciousness slowly slipping away from reality…

And then, one single look at the TV woke him up.

His single eye looked at… the device.

Goosebumps crawled from his hands to the rest of his body, even if he didn’t feel cold. His arms tensed up a little more than they normally would…

Sunny, stood up. He walked towards the radio, and stared up at the colourful mess that was the sky.

“Can I get something… so I could use the… radio…?” He asked quietly, pausing once he felt the sharp pain in his  neck.

Nothing happened, nothing responded. 

Sunny looked around and tried to find if anything had changed. He had only realised what had changed once the boy saw the radio. Next to the radio, there was a black and smooth keyboard that was connected to its back. A tiny little second black box was attached to the keyboard.

The black box looked like a discoloured rubik's cube, while the keyboard was similar to the ones these weird computers had… even if this one looked nicer… more smooth.

Willing to experiment, he searched for the A key and pressed it. 

The first letter of the alphabet began illuminating in green, above the black box. Sunny’s eyes widened, as he pressed every single key, trying to figure out how to delete letters. The letters and symbols were showing up from the box, static in the air. His single eye was turning towards the TV, trying to see if the experiments worked… and they did.

With every single key pressed, the TV showed a different place. Most of them were completely empty, or static.

After finding the backspace key, he deleted every single character… except the “a”.

It lingered in the air, as he slowly typed out “Aubrey”. His hands movements were slow and precise, lightly touching the smooth texture of the keyboard. He could feel himself tense up more and more with each press.

Click.

He pressed the “y” key and took a deep breath, her full name floating in the air above the box in green and transparent letters.

The radio instantly began to work, as sounds of a car and murmurs of people talking were coming from it.

Sunny turned around.

Aubrey, next to Kel and his mother… driving forward… in the void.

~~~

“The shine on the compass is quite strong,” Aubrey informed the rest of the crew, looking at the compass Kel was holding. “We must be getting close then,” 

Kel didn’t react, trying to find more random objects on the floor. In the past hour of driving, Kel found a single piece of grass and a pillow. The pillow was currently in use by Adra; who was somehow sleeping on the cold metal. Aubrey hoped that it would not be the most uncomfortable thing ever.

“If our assumptions are correct,” he responded a bit late. His voice detached from the conversation.

Aubrey sighed and carefully stepped towards the boys in the front. 

Mikhael was sleeping as well, reminding the girl even more about how tired she felt. Her red eyes collaborated with her tired eyelids to make her look as close to a corpse as she probably could be. How long this tiring day has lasted, this situation felt like something out of a movie…

She took a look at Vance, and seeing his eyelids slowly slipping to their “sleep position”, Aubrey began hitting the wall behind him. The loud hits of metal woke up everyone, including Adra.

“Come on…” Mikhael whispered before quickly falling back to sleep.

“Thanks,” Vance muttered, opening his eyes and once again making sure that his hands were on the wheel.

Aubrey smiled, returning back to Kel. Her hair was still gliding in the air, free from everything except the dust. 

She understood why Kel enjoyed this activity so much, even if she herself didn’t really see “ground fishing” (as Kel called it) that fun. Picking up scraps of their old places, just to search for something familiar, kind of gave her the opposite effect compared to Kel. 

It didn’t matter though, as Kel was clearly happy doing this. It was so small, but somehow the most significant thing they could do at the moment. Aubrey, bored out of her mind, walked up to the bucket of items. She took out the coin, and began throwing it… trying to guess if it would land on heads or tails.

“GUYS!” Vance shouted at the top of his lungs, “THERE IT IS! YOU WERE ACTUALLY RIGHT?!” 

The shout of the man in the front seat properly woke up everyone. Mikhael jumped in his seat, while Adra yawned and felt the back pain caused by her bed. 

Aubrey went to the edge of the truck, trying to see what Vance saw. She squinted her eyes, and saw a ruined gas station in the distance. The sign of the station was on the floor, and the entire structure looked as if one push would destroy the concrete that made up the walls.

As they approached the building, they got a better view of the place. The gas station looked completely abandoned. The lights inside were working (as well as a couple of the neon letters that were on the floor). Some of the lamps - although they were turned on - were flickering. 

The somewhat clean white and red walls were now grey, beginning to lose colour. The dust seemed to stick to it, like glue. A single car could be seen, sadly it was smashed by the ceiling of the main building.

After a minute of waiting, the entire group in the car choked as a foul smell drifted around in the air. Aubrey could feel her insides turn, knowing that the place was probably the source of it. 

The shop - or rather what was left of it - looked dilapidated. Many of the shelves were on the ground, some of them were broken. The glass door that would have been the entrance to the place, was now just a pile of pieces that would cut them if touched. The whole place - not only smelled like shit - but it also had this entire feeling of uneasiness.

“Is this the only thing left after… us?” Aubrey thought, feeling herself tear up already…

Vance parked the car next to one of the gas pumps. The pump still worked. He pressed the button and waited for it to be full, while Mikhael went for a couple of gas cans so that they would be able to drive for longer distances. 

Adra stayed in the car, not really willing to do anything; until she heard that there was a possibility of a toilet. 

Kel and Aubrey though, insisted on leaving and gathering some random things from the gas station shop itself. 

Kel took the bucket with him. The coin was still inside, making sounds that annoyed Aubrey a bit when they were walking. The compass was still in Kel’s other hand.

Kel and Aubrey had split up for a moment, Aubrey wanting to inspect the other car. The closer she got, the stronger the stench was. She felt herself tense up and shake a little, as she already knew what would be inside of the broken vehicle. The girl closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down before looking inside.

She took one final step forward…

Slowly opened her eyes…

And instantly vomited, turning the other way and falling onto the rocky ground of this hellscape.

Inside the car, there were not one, but two, dead bodies lying in the front seats. The pole that broke the front glass also hit them at the same time. Their bodies were not only crushed, but also mutilated. Red blood spilled everywhere, their pale white bodies lying on the seat as their insides were ripped out of them. Black blood was on their faces and bodies. 

Aubrey sprinted to Kel, not wanting to think about another dead person. She didn’t notice the black liquid that she had stepped in…

Kel - instead of looking at rotting bodies - was navigating the parkour style maze that were the ruins of the shop. 

He glanced at the compass, which was rotating constantly and shining lighter than any flashlight he could bring, and put the bucket on the ground. After freeing his other hand, he decided to push one of the shelves into one of the only two walls of the shop to get to the rest, as it was blocking his path.

RING!

The shelf fell down and dropped its contents onto the floor below.

He knelt down onto the dirty ground and began to throw everything he could into the bucket. 

Adra’s footsteps walked away from Kel, while Aubrey entered the shop - still shellshocked by the sight.

“You okay?” Kel asked, seeing that Aubrey seemed a bit more tense than before, the expression on her face seeming a bit forced. 

She nodded, before silently taking the bucket and going to one of the fridges that hadn’t fallen down. Kel, jokingly, looked daggers at her. His mind changed once he saw her packing a couple bottles of Orange Joe into the bucket, before putting water and walking away towards the car. 

Kel smiled, before looking over to the rainbow tool he was currently holding.

“Turn into a bucket,” He ordered, and the compass complied. 

In a matter of mere nanoseconds, the compass turned into a standard looking bucket with a shinier glow than the other one. Surprisingly, it was lighter than the one Aubrey took from him… but he couldn’t really remember if it was the fact that the normal bucket was already full of random stuff. 

Kel began to fill it up with snacks again, while Aubrey calmly walked back towards the shop. She was back a bit before Kel filled up his container. The number of snacks and drinks that they were taking was insane, the van would be more stacked than his fridge at home- 

He was slightly worried about the space they would have in the van, but they would somehow fit.

And so, for the next few minutes the gas station was populated, maybe for its last time ever. 

While Kel was taking food and later drinks, Aubrey decided to turn to more niche things like lighters, bottle openers, sweets, toilet paper, bandaids, bandages, newspapers, magazines and more. She even found a small section with simple board games and card games. She took two packages of UNO, a chess and checkers board and Monopoly. 

Walking there and back was the most amount of exercise she and Kel had felt in a long time. The back of the vehicles slowly filled up, luckily, it would take hours for them to fill it up if they wanted to.

~~~

Aubrey grunted. She threw another pile of different items into the mini-truck. This time it was some sweets and what was left of the toilet paper stock. Her hands were already getting red and numb, her legs a bit weaker and shaky. Her body reminded her that she hadn’t slept in a very long while. 

She stumbled a bit, before smashing her back a little too hard against the car. 

Mikhael, who just finished taking the last gas can he could find, saw Aubrey and decided to approach her.

“You should sleep,” He said, before snatching the bucket from her tired hands.

Aubrey shook her head, stood up, and tried taking it away from him.

Mikhael jumped back, before running towards the broken shop, leaving Aubrey next to the car.

The girl, stunned at the turn of events, didn’t follow him back into the building. Instead, she sighed and climbed up into the stock of the entire shop they were robbing. She sat down on one of the free places, watching Adra slowly sort everything into their respective place. 

Not even a minute after sitting down, she felt a wave of exhaustion hit her. It felt as if her entire body was giving up on her right now. 

Meanwhile, Mikheal was entering the shop through the pile of rocks that were probably one of the walls of the building before this… happened. As Mikhael began picking up some of the sweets on the floor, he took a quick look around to see where and what Kel was up to. He quickly found out that Kel was drinking some of the Orange Joe Aubrey hadn’t picked up, before throwing it out of the building.

Crash!

Mikhael didn’t comment, feeling a tiny bit of worry painted on the wall that was his mind. He continued to place anything and everything he could find, not thinking if it will be useful in the coming future.

Kel’s bucket was empty.

Splash…

“Aren’t you picking anything up?” Mikhael asked, not looking at Kel’s face, but at his rainbow tool.

“I thought the truck was full,” Kel replied, moving his nose a bit as a horrid smell annoyed his nostrils.

“It isn’t,” The graffiti artist replied, not noticing the weird stink or Kel’s tiny movements.

Kel’s eyes peeked to the left, looking at the broken car in the background.

“Well then,” He shrugged, trying to ignore the stench as it was slowly getting stronger.

Splash…

“You feel this…” Mikhael coughed out, before forcing his nose to close and stepping back a bit.

“Yeah,” Kel began coughing as well.

As he took a glance at Mikhael, he saw that there was a black goop leaking from the top.

Splash…

“KEL?!” Vance’s shout came from the car. “MIKHAEL?! RUN!”

The car instantly turned on, Kel and Mikhael could hear the car wheels speeding up towards them.

The two stunned boys quickly began sprinting out of the shop towards the noise, not even looking at what was endangering them. Sadly, their path out would be blocked by the monstrum that seemed to have been waiting for them.

SHAKE! 

From seemingly nowhere, their path was blocked by a giant black creature standing in the entrance itself. The creature was giant, as it towered over the building itself. It didn’t seem to have a head, but instead it had multiple long thin arm-like limbs with three sharp-looking claws sticking out of each limb. All of the limbs were coming out of the centre; something that looked like a chest. The chest was sponge-like, with a lot of visible (but tiny) holes with a black liquid leaking out of the lower ones.

The smell it gave off, could be compared to the one of a rotting body.

Kel and Mikheal, close enough to feel the air it was sucking up, began slowly moving back towards the two walls that were still intact.

“Oh shit,” Kel muttered to himself, hearing himself swear for the first time

Mikhael didn’t acknowledge it, as he almost slipped. The creature was still standing in the entrance, not moving from the way out. 

“KEL!” Aubrey shouted - probably from the truck. “THE WINDOWS!”

BANG!

The ceiling shattered into pieces as the creature’s arms had destroyed it into tiny pieces. The rock solid surface didn’t fall onto their heads, it was turned into dust before it could even begin falling. The large limbs and claws of the black sponge became more apparent.

Kel - his eyes and arms shaking in fear - looked to the side and saw the car standing a little further from the shop. The half broken windows and glass door clearly being the only way out as…

“COME ON!” Vance roared from the car, the monster somehow not hearing him.

Mikhael, who was still walking back into a corner as the monster slowly went towards them, didn’t seem to hear his friends…

In a matter of seconds, fearing for his life, Kel grabbed Mikhael’s arm and pulled him towards the only way out.

BANG!

One of the goopy black hands latched onto where Mikhael was a moment ago.

Kel - trying to breathe deeply and stop panicking - took his own bucket and threw it at the glass…

“GO! FASTER!” Aubrey jumped out of the car, barely sticking the landing.

…door.

CRASH!

Contents of the bucket fell down onto the floor.

Kel began sprinting towards the car, grabbing Mikhael’s arm and running through the hole they had just expanded.

“OW!” He heard a shout behind him…

Blood…

CRASH!

Another hand of the monster.

He could hear its huffing behind him.

Aubrey jumped onto the car again.

His movements were automatic, holding the crystal bucket in his hand.

Adra helped them up.

Vance rode off.

ROAR!

“Huff…” He could finally hear his breathing, “Huff…”

“You-” Aubrey stuttered, her eyes wide and red. Was she crying? “Alright?”

ROAR!

Loud footsteps of the monster could be heard, as it somehow reacted quicker than it had before.

Behind them, a dark silhouette emerged from the (now) ruins of the building they had just completely robbed.

“IT IS COMING!” Mikhael shouted, still feeling the bleeding from the glass shards. 

Vance screamed something completely incomprehensible back. 

The car was already going at maximum speed, moving through bumps and jumping. 

Some of the things they had gathered were falling out, mostly food and Orange Joe. 

Mikhael looked away, not wanting to think about that beast, while Adra went to the edge of the mini-truck. 

The monster was approaching them, with more than 10 limbs helping it jump and chase them. Aubrey snatched Adra with her hand, making sure she wouldn’t fall off. She backed off, and went to help Mikhael calm down. Kel - barely able to take a deep breath - stared at the empty rainbow bucket he was holding.

“Help us,” Kel begged the Crystal, “Please…”

The bucket disappeared in a blink of an eye, as it turned into a bow and a quiver. 

The bow was glowing red, while the arrows in the rainbow quiver were a mixture of green, blue and purple. 

The tip was red, while the stick itself was actually all of those three colours. Kel looked at the weapons before him confused, as he had never used a bow before. 

Alas, the loud steps and the incoming stench of the monster reminded him of what would happen if he wouldn’t try.

Kel took the bow, luckily holding it correctly, and took an arrow out of the quiver, placing it on the bowstring. The grip and his hand shook, as he tilted his head a little and closed one eye, aiming at the centre of the creature itself. Trying to replicate what he had seen in the movies and comics. The limbs of the bow bent a little, as the arrow was loaded further and further. 

Screams of people in the back.

Mikhael trying to patch himself up.

Everything they gathered slowly fell out.

All…

Everything.

In his hands…

He took another deep breath…

This time it worked.

The world around him turned into a blur, except the monster.

And then, he let go.

The arrow pierced the dust, flying further than expected, air resistance not working as intended. 

Weirdly enough, from the back of the arrow, there was a tiny red string that was flying from the bow. The arrow - aimed quite badly but good enough - hit one of his limbs, causing the monster to fall for a second, eating the rock below it.

Before they could celebrate a small victory, the creature roared and continued to dash to them, slower than beforehand. 

The arrow he had shot didn’t finish its journey there, as it somehow used the string to reverse back, this time hitting the centre of the creature. As the arrow returned, it was stained with black and awful smelling blood. 

Aubrey stole that arrow and decided to hold its stained parts in the sky so that it wouldn’t land onto where they slept. The rest of the crew were doing something… something Kel could not focus on at the current moment.

Kel - feeling a burning feeling of hope slowly turning into a flame - loaded another blindingly light arrow and shot it once again, this time entirely missing. (Probably due to the truck going up and down constantly).

The return of the arrow luckily hit one leg off. 

The beast was not done yet, as its limbs were beginning to regrow already. 

Not knowing what to do, he took three arrows and placed them on the bowstring, before accidentally firing them before he could aim. 

Luck was on his side as the creature roared and cried out of pain. 

The three arrows had hit him, and Kel was not done - taking another three and shooting it faster. 

One of the three arrows didn’t even shoot, while the two others were hopefully good enough so that once they returned, they would hit the enemy. 

His hand was already in pain, but it didn’t matter.

Blood was coming out of the cuts.

It didn’t matter.

A scream?

Who was it?

He couldn’t focus.

It didn’t matter.

The first barrage he had sent already came back, and Kel didn’t waste time shooting them right back, not even giving them to Aubrey. 

His arms were visibly shaking and his movements were not stable, as too big of a jump would probably make him fall. 

The monster was roaring and rushing towards them as fast as it could. The power of colour breaking it down. 

Its run was slower, and the regrow of his body seemed not to be quick enough. 

The boy shot one more barrage, only one arrow hitting it. 

The hit was good enough, as it pierced through his centre, before hitting him once again when it returned.

The monster, grunting and sluggishly moving, was no longer a danger… as its mad dash finally became slower than the vehicle itself. 

It moved in its own blood pool, its life slowly draining and its limbs slowly losing their strength. 

CRASH!

They could feel it fall onto the ground. As the car sped off, the black creature slowly turned into a part of the fog, before disappearing forever from their sight. 

Kel - feeling his cut hands and tired… everything - turned around to see his friends alive and staring right back at him. Well, he couldn’t really see that, as it was also… a blur.

The adrenaline didn’t last for long, as the fog in his mind became cloudier than usual. Everything hurt. He glanced down at his legs, they were a bit cut up as well.

He heard their voices, as they drifted off. He couldn’t make out what they were saying.

The horrid smell of the black blood overwhelmed him even more.

He fell onto the metal, although he couldn’t hear it…

He could hear someone shouting… crying… maybe more people?

“Hero?” He saw his brother above him, as he began to cry and…

He closed his eyes.

And slipped away.

Towards the darkness.

Far away.

~~~

Everything hurt.

His eyes didn’t open up slowly, as a sharp pain woke Kel up.

He saw the nebula, dancing and spinning with its colours.

Some calming music playing in the background. 

He turned around, and noticed that he was laying on a pillow, and some packages of toilet paper. 

The air was still cold and refreshing. Waking up from the makeshift bed, dust fell out of him, as it had gathered on his clothes, face and hair. He stood up onto the metal and spun in a circle.

The mini-truck was devoid of people, and somewhat dark. 

He looked around for the glowing rainbow stone, and it was nowhere to be found. The only thing he could see that reminded him of the stone, was the single penny on the floor.

Music continued to play, as the smell of a campfire made itself known to him. 

His muscles were still aching, making waking up a much more difficult feat than it would normally be. His ears slowly began hearing his friends talking, and the sound of a campfire burning in the background.

Kel turned around, to see all his friends three metres away from the mini-van.

They were sitting around a campfire burning in the centre, the wood seemed to be made out of his crystal, and it didn’t seem to burn. 

Smoke clouds were floating up into the sky, clearly a lot denser and worse than the dust and ash that had been falling onto them for the whole time. 

The music that was playing, seemed to be played by the campfire itself. It was very relaxing and calming. 

Kel jumped out of the truck, and instantly groaned in pain as he regretted his choice.

“Kel!” Aubrey shouted, being the first one to notice. She ran up to him, and hugged him, while the rest looked towards his way and smiled, all of them were sitting on rainbow benches.

“Come join us!” Mikhael stood up and walked up to Kel, not wanting to see Aubrey cry even more. “Our archer! Our warrior!” Mikhael tried to imitate his “Maverick” voice, which only made him giggle and laugh. 

Aubrey went back towards the bench, sitting next to Adra.

Kel saw the fire burn and the music play, even if this was in the middle of nowhere, it felt like this place was somewhere familiar.

“What is this…?” Kel asked, not only thinking about what his sleep caused him to omit, but also wondering about the creation process of this cosy corner in the middle of nowhere.

The five human adventurers of the void, of the barren island of the place, laughed around the campfire that gave off a little more light than the nebula above. 

The warmer air comforted them, even though the benches were seemingly made out of rock solid stone. 

They didn’t think about the past, or about tomorrow - whatever it was. The only thing on their mind was now, and the campfire. 

The ruins of this world were not dead to them, at least not now…

~~~

The TV was showing his family around a campfire, talking and having fun. 

Sunny had been watching them for a long time now. But right now he wasn’t in the mood to watch them from the TV. He could hear them laugh, or smile, or shout… something he couldn’t replicate even if he asked the void for help. 

Sunny did not have time to watch and drink coffee on the sofa. 

Instead, something new preoccupied his wandering thoughts. 

He was looking at the massive amount of small papers he had asked for and a pen that would never run out of ink. The papers were perfectly smooth and writing on them brought him a lot of satisfaction he had not experienced in a long time. 

On the table next to him - and the giant floating pin board that would expand if he so wished - there was a bag with an infinite amount of pins, his sunglasses that made reading more difficult, and a ball of red string that would never end. He remembered watching detective shows with these things, and he always wanted to make one.

His main goal… was still up in the air… somewhere.

But for now, he wanted to keep track of everything… it isn’t like he could kill himself…

His left eye glanced at the bloody knife that he had thrown far far far far far far…

There were already a couple of things he had written down and placed on the board. 

The first one was the dark world. He had called it “Big Black Space”. It wasn’t quite a good description, but good enough. 

Tied to it were the other things, the Void, the Dust, the Islands, the Moons, the Monster, the Nebula and the Event that caused all of this to happen. 

The glowing magical crystal was also a part of this equation, but he didn’t know where he would place it. For now it was tied to the Nebula - just a guess.

He huffed, drinking another cup of the infinite coffee, before putting it back on the table, splashing a bit of the liquid onto the floor. After that, Sunny went back onto the couch. The TV was still playing. The campfire and the people around it were still there, resting… thinking. 

How much would he want to be there? 

Would he destroy their mood? 

“Not that it is gonna happen,” He thought…

Chapter Text

“I can tell you the rest tomorrow…” Aubrey whispered into his ear, sitting by him.

She stared into his eye… it was still empty. Although she could see tiny stars glimmering in the void of his single eye, they quickly disappeared once he noticed that she was looking. His muscles were a little more tense than before; his legs moving a bit faster than usual.

“You can continue,” He spoke, slowly and carefully. His voice had this calming tone to it, even though it was slightly off. A bit unnatural, forced.

“...” Aubrey took a deep breath, and knowing he wouldn’t tell her to stop, went to her comfortable bed.

“Are you sleepy?” Sunny asked, his voice returning to its normal comforting sound.

“Yes,” She lied, “I will tell you the rest once I wake up… Okay?”

His eye glanced at her. Sunny stood up, left the room, and closed the door to her bedroom.

~~~

Entry 26 - Hello, this is Prin writing here. Today’s mission didn’t go according to plan. We just wanted to quickly steal some Feloids, and well… the younglin’ decided to enter with us without our permission.

We had to search the city for him and almost got caught. Well by almost, I mean we had to fight a couple of them on the way out.

Surprisingly, the boy had some fighting skills. He is more and more interesting each day we keep him here.

<~~~>

He felt guilty.

He had killed the president.

He didn’t want to.

He wanted to believe in God.

But that child is not God.

He is a liar.

And it is his fault…

No.

It isn’t..

He shot him.

He ran and picked up the gun from his house.

He did it, not the child.

And that is why he felt guilty.

And that is why he was standing in front of the endless void below, his feet on the edge of the road.

He took a long and deep breath, closing his eyes, and before he let it go…

He jumped.

Never to be seen again.

~~~

Faraway was becoming a dream, a fantasy of her own mind. She didn’t like calling it that, but for the past week or so, it has become more and more distant. The city was disappearing: the shops, the playground, the school, Gino’s. It scared her, it scared her that it was only a blur in her life.

The individual moments were vivid, but they began to get mixed up with each other. Small details she would have remembered were gone, as if someone had drained the world around them into a watercolour background. Their smiles, their fun, their heists.

The Party she had organised for Aubrey was the last moment of happiness she remembered. The world suddenly disappeared minutes after Basil broke the entire fucking thing and… stole time she could have had with Aubrey. She didn’t really know if she was alive right now, but she hoped that Kel took care of her… even in this place.

Kim was walking towards the flower shop, well what remained of it. The flower shop itself was on the outskirts of the city; its purpose of a flower shop was gone, as it was storage for the many people driving there and back through the barren land of this alien world.

This was the first time she actually saw how empty and lifeless the world around them was. It was frightening that her friends were somewhere there, in that vast barren place, and that she would never see them again. Everything that she had, everything that was in the past, was gone. 

The only thing left was… her and Hero.

Thinking about him just reminded her of Faraway. He is just… She can’t look at him without feeling like she could have stopped the end of the world…

Dreaming…

The girl looked at the Gem she was holding with her left hand, stuffed in her pocket. Its light was glowing a bit, but not enough for anyone to notice without making a visible effort to see what she was holding. The seemingly infinite power of this purplish rock made her feel that if she had it beforehand, she might have helped…

Her mind wandered somewhere else, the dust continued to fall, some of it falling onto her Gem. It shone brighter for a second, floating a bit stronger, before it evaporated. This weird interaction confused her, as there didn’t seem to be any correlations between the dust and the Gem.

Kim saw a small group of people approach the storage place, they were talking about something she couldn’t hear quite clearly about. She wanted to eavesdrop for a second, but decided to back away for now. They passed her, leaving the girl alone.

Everything felt wrong and right at the same time… it was hard to articulate for her, she couldn’t really understand. Most of the time thinking of something else to stop her deep teenage thoughts everyone wanted to hear from her.

What is your future? Your job? Who are you? How is Aubrey doing? Is Vance okay? Is the Hooligang okay? Are they even alive?

“They might as well be dead,” She thought, looking far into the less than uninteresting place.

Her mind has been… a mess. She felt alien to who she was before everything broke down into pieces. It was like her own personality was leaving her. Maybe the fact that everything was scattered, and that Hero and Charles were both more distant from her, she felt alone…

She huffed, and decided that she needed something else to think about…

Candy.

~~~

Hero didn’t know why he was still listening to Charles. Even if he backed away most of the time, or did his task his own way without the use of Magic, this was just dumb. He was walking around, and trying to make sure the speakers, microphone and cables were not only working perfectly, but that they were not dusty.

It had been discovered that the dust materialised into a liquid if it wasn’t touching its own ground for too long, leading to many new jobs like “Dust-Cleaners” and more “Dust-Cleaners”. The city was slowly restructuring itself.

Today was “an important day” according to his younger… friend? He already pieced together that there would be another speech here, another important announcement to the public of the worried city. There had been rumours after all, rumours about the president being revived or the “God of this world” coming back.

His mind thought of Charles, as people seemed to treat him a lot differently than anyone else, but he wasn’t God. Far from it. Yet, he knew that he had magic. Many people would cling onto hope during this situation, and so he could see some people calling him God. Alas, it wasn’t an important fact for him.

Hero just wanted to get out of this city as quickly as possible. They were meant to do something different, something that would save the entire world. Charles promised them that, right?

Who… was he?

As the man worked on the cables, making sure that everything would not break into chaos one more time, he thought about how trustworthy Charles could be. He wasn’t an evil person, or someone that they couldn’t rely on, as he didn’t leave them alone beforehand…

But was he actually here to save them? To bring back home. They both, Kim and he, weren’t really sure…

Everything was in place, at least when he last checked everything. Henry walked up to the pedestal, some people looking at him, most of them not interested in this. He turned on the microphone.

“One, two,” He tested it, his voice loud and clear, coming from the speakers that were pointing towards where the crowd would be, “One, two, three.”

It was working perfectly.

Somewhat tired from constantly looking down, he turned around to step off the public pedestal. A person blocked him, standing in front of him, and observing his work. Their short but sleek brown hair moved to the side, combined with a tiny grin of his face, and his black clothes that didn’t match the almost empty sky of this world, made for a very formal look.

“Thank you for helping…” the Assistant stated, his words lacking any kind of emotion, “Could you introduce yourself before you go. I would be very pleased to tell Zenith about his apprentice, which I am guessing you are.”

Zenith? Hero thought, not knowing that Charles was using a fake name in front of these people… or maybe both names were fake…

“Henry,” He said, walking off of the platform, but still looking at the politician’s face, “Henry Rodrigez,”

“Well Henry, I have a simple offer,” The man followed behind him, his grin disappearing, “You could join me and the other high figures of this city… On a single condition. You would leave Zenith behind,”

“I don’t accept,” Henry replied quickly, not even thinking about it. “There is no reason for me to do that,”

“Ah- you see, you will be remembered as the beginning of something… new…”  The assistant continued trying, not noticing that Henry was walking quite a bit faster, “Think about it… it may be the right choice…”`

Henry wanted to laugh. He turned his head away from the assistant, and calmly walked… home?

~~~

Kim walked towards one of the supermarkets in the area. It was moderately full, with a couple of policemen blocking the entrances so that no one could repeat the incident from before. The food there was free, but it was limited. The cash registers were modified a little bit so that you had to give your name, and everyone could take only that amount of food weekly.

Since they lived together, she decided to waste some of that on some candy. It would help her think straighter, at least for a moment. Or… she would cry again. Thinking of Faraway and all of the happier times she couldn’t come back to.

She could feel a teardrop falling onto the ground, she couldn’t notice it falling onto the ground and breaking down the Dust on the floor. It would be cleaned off the floor soon, thrown into the void below.

The girl approached the entrance, seeing a couple of people leave with some paper bags in their hands. Even a family was walking back home, laughing and talking. She couldn’t understand how these people could be so happy. The world had ended and they were just, being normal.

Maybe it was the fact that she knew more about them, or that they wanted to keep their children happier, but it couldn’t be real. It has only been a week, and all of the sadness from the city hasn’t disappeared. The buildings were still mostly ruined, people still found dead bodies lying around, the smell of blood and rot still populated the metro.

It wasn’t the fact that she didn’t see sad people, Kim hadn’t expected to see people that were already… back to enjoying their lives.

It made her envious that she couldn’t do that, she could not in her right mind think of this as happy. There was too much wrong with all of this.

Luckily, she was one step away from the store to get some-

“STOP!” One of the policemen ordered, shocked to even be told about that, she complied, “As ordered by Zenith, the.... 'god' of this city, I can’t let you pass due to your previous crimes.”

“Zenith?” Everything quickly clicked, as a purple glow reminded her of the Gem, “I am Zenith’s apprentice, can’t you let me just grab some candy?”

“No,” The guard replied in his authoritative tone, blocking the entrance, “Everyone would say that!”

Angry at the fact that this day couldn’t get any worse, she turned around and rolled her eyes. Kim, already thinking of how to get Charles to get more candy for her, realised that she has something the police didn’t have…

The Purple Gem.

She took the purple Gem into her hand and kept it inside her fist, similar to what Charles did when he jumped down. She approached the guard once again, not really thinking about the long-term consequences.

“STOP!” He repeated.

Kim flinched, her mind thinking over this for a mildly short amount of time, before she sprinted towards the guard. Shocked by the girl, the guard quickly took out a gun, aiming straight at her.

His reaction was too slow, as she already punched him forward into the glass door behind him. Thrusted into the air - in a very unnatural way - he hit the door with his back. The glass shattered into pieces, as a loud sound gave her punch some additional feeling of power.

Flabbergasted by the lightness the guard felt, and the fact that he had suddenly felt a rush of pain overwhelm his back, the guard held onto the gun tighter, and shouted. He tried to stand up, but the girl quickly picked him up and threw him away, using all of that pent up anger and contradictory emotions to fuel that attack.

It felt kind of therapeutic to fight, to let her body automatically do what it was supposed to do. The bright purple light that was coming out of her right fist, reminded her that it was the Gem working, not her being powerful… even if she felt the power flowing through her.

Two more guards came, running from the shop and staring at the entire commotion. Some of the townsfolk around also noticed the fight, not willing to step in. Realising that her plan wouldn’t go quite well, she stormed into the shop.

Shouting behind her confirmed her suspicions that she was being chased. Without looking back, she made sure no one was in her alley, and ran to the side. Using her left hand, she gripped onto the shelf and pulled it to the side. The mass destruction, loud thud, and screams behind Kim made her grin.

With the purple light glowing, she noticed the shelf with candy, and quickly turned around towards it. Her legs almost floating above the ground, her movement a bit floatier than before, Kim snatched one of the plastic bags and began putting as much candy in it as she could.

So.

Much.

Taffy.

“HANDS UP!” Another shout came from closeby, one of the guards pointing his gun at her. 

Feeling defenceless with that tiny machine threatening her, Kim jumped to the side, hoping that the policeman wouldn’t shoot. Screaming and running continued, she couldn’t see what was happening around her, as another shelf somehow fell down next to her. Making another loud thud.

With her bag in her left hand, and the Gem in the other, she quickly scurried towards the exit. A guard stood in front of her, his steps directionless as both of his hands held onto his head. Kim quickly approached him, and kicked one of his legs away.

The guard fell onto the floor, barely saving his head from hitting the concrete. Kim, hearing more shouting and running, sprinted towards the exit door. The people that were in the shop, stood still, not willing to help the guards or the girl. Some of them even started taking some of the stuff themselves.

The feeling of dust falling onto her returned, as Kim ran back into the city, leaving the entire supermarket in disarray.

After a couple of quick turns, she found herself in a safe place. Only now, did Kim feel how exhausted she was feeling. Her heart was racing so fast that she could hear it, her breathing was quicker - even though it still kept a perfect rhythm.

The Gem in her hand had stopped glowing so brightly. She stared at it, her tired face reflected in its smooth purple surface. The power it gave her was so strong compared to the size of the thing; and she loved it. She loved feeling under the influence of these Gems.

It felt kind of natural, as if she was restricted before and only now, she felt free…

Kim put it back into her pocket, and took one of the candy out of the bag. She quickly ate it, before throwing the plastic paper into the same exact pocket.

~~~

Charles was looking at the entire city, from above. He had already done his job for today, looking for more locations to plunder, and seeing if the monsters were still headed towards the city. Nothing had changed, those creatures were still coming. And he had to stop them…

So many things to do, normally he would just ask his friends to do some of the things. Right now… he was alone. There was no one to help him, and no one that could tell him what the next step could potentially be. Only his experience, and his expertise could help the city thrive so that they could…

Leave.

Did he really want to leave though? Was it actually safe? If a bastion of the world like this can survive, maybe others probably could too. There are so many other people that have the possibility of this happening to them, and with the population of that planet being very high, there was no need to leave.

They could just adapt…

The mission.

Did he want to come back to Signal Space? Did he really want that? In here, it took him a single day to make himself a figure people believed in or looked up to. He was meant to be here, as if fate controlled his actions and made sure that he would become a god to these people…

It was safe here, it was safer than anywhere else he had been to. He had never felt this closeness to a place, even Signal Space, or his home. Maybe because he had already forgotten who he was before he joined that elite group of rift-travellers. Sometimes he wished that he would have never left for the idea of “the greater good”. After all, what is the greater good if everyone around you had left.

Charles has a mission that he had failed already, they would call him names and make fun of him again, his friends would be too scared to join his side, and his intelligence would not save him this time. They called him the second Prin, the one that could do as much as him, and he showed them that he is… he also left Signal Space because he wanted to…

There must have been a reason, and now he knows why Prin left to live in hiding.

The legendary scientist that everyone looked up to, and then suddenly left due to seemingly no reason. A person that had made the entire project for the Entry Point, and went on missions daily to build it in a pocket dimension made by ancient beings… Humans.

It felt weird to him that there were so many beings called Humans next to him, he had never thought about it in detail. He was similar to them, too eerily similar to them…

His train of thought suddenly stopped, as he heard footsteps from down below. Charles - his hands on the bars that made the metal fence around the Lookout Spot - saw Kim walking up. She was huffing and puffing, her face red. The girl stared back at him and quickly climbed the ladder, almost falling off of it once.

She took out a piece of candy from her pocket, unwrapped the plastic and stuffed the packaging back, before chewing the candy and eyeing him.

“So, when are we going?” Kim asked, walking towards the edge of the platform, but still staring at him. “We can’t wait for the world to be saved,”

“We have to stay to help with the monster problem,” He almost stuttered the answer, he had to seem confident. He wasn’t running away, Charles just wanted to help.

“They have guns, and a lot of people-” She stated, “They could deal with it themselves,”

“We don’t know what they are, Kim!” He retorted, taking a step back to hide his hands; his muscles tightening.

“Yeah, exactly,” She finished eating the candy, and was about to take another, focused on the conversation, “You don’t know what they are; accusing them of being hostile could be wrong.”

Kim put her hand in her pocket.

“But they could be,” Charles stared back at the empty scenery beyond the city, “There is a chance, and by looking at their anatomy they-”

He stopped talking, as Kim accidentally took out the purple Gem in her pocket, oblivious to the fact that it wasn’t candy. She only noticed its purple glow when Kim saw Charles’ stunned face. Charles quickly approached her, and snatched the Gem away before putting it in his bag.

“You stole that from me?!” Charles shouted, stunned by the fact that he didn’t even notice.

“You didn’t wanna teach us shit!” Kim explained her reasoning, “So I decided to steal one of those to learn what the fuck is going on! But I guess someone didn’t expect it!” She stepped towards him.

“I can’t teach you shit because you are this spontaneous, Kim!” Charles defended himself, trying to come up with a lie that could last for a long time, “And I have been showing you the ways, you have used the Gem Gun!”

“Could have said they are colour-coded” Kim stated, before adding in, “Or concentrated on us and saving the world more, than on a small city that can live on its own!”

He huffed, turning his head towards the metal railing and looking at the city. She did the same, but instead of looking the other way, Kim watched him. Charles stayed in silence, as if he was waiting for something to happen.

“I just want to help, can’t you just show us more… Me and Hero?” Kim begged…

“I can’t, not right now.” Charles backed away physically and mentally. He works the best alone, everyone else will just betray him or go their way.

Kim backed away, already looking the other way, ready to leave the lookout spot.

“When?” She begged one more time, staring at the bag for a moment too long.

“One day,” Charles sighed, “Not now,”

“Okay Zenith,” Kim stated, and left.

Charles didn’t want to feel the tears falling off his face, as he turned back to the city… looking at those people that didn’t see him… and never would.

~~~

Kim knocked on the door to Hero’s room, she couldn’t find him anywhere else, city or house. She hadn’t seen him since morning, and after what had happened with Charles, playing a game of Chess could potentially be a lot more enjoyable than the millions of thoughts running around in directions she couldn’t comprehend.

Yet, no one answers.

Knock! Knock!

She tried again, this time a lot harder and louder so that Hero couldn’t miss it. The door stayed still, not even moving an inch. Kim huffed, before opening the door and stepping inside the room.

Hero’s room was nothing special, it was actually very similar to hers. It also lacked Hero inside. She had the urge to look around the place, to find some old man secrets… and she gave in to that urge. Though, Kim quickly realised that there was nothing lying around, there were books and pens lying around, but none of them belonged to the man himself.

There was nothing of interest there, and so she left. Kim walked around the boring house, trying to find something to do while everyone was gone. Eating candy would not suffice. The house itself was not really that comforting to her. Even though she had spent days here, she felt alien to this place. It reminded her that she wasn’t home, and that…

Everything was gone.

She found a chess board lying closed on the table. She sat down on the couch, and opened the box. All of the wooden pieces fell out of their slots, mixed and lying around. Pieces of a bigger puzzle that was… broken. Well, the pieces themselves weren’t… at least.

Kim began putting them up on the table, ordering them by colour, before fully straightening the playing board. The process of putting chess pieces in their place was a relaxing one. Until the moment she had realised that she actually didn’t know where specifically she should put them.

She began experimenting with the different combinations of patterns, trying to find the right one. None of them seemed right. She moved them around more and more, even breaking some of the rules she knew like the pawn structure. None of the patterns worked.

Every change made her even angrier than before, spiting her. She tried again and again, moving her hands quicker and quicker… looking for the spot before Hero came.

But after a while, this strong emotion reached its peak.

Kim took the board, and flung it into the air without even realising what she had done. In a moment of realisation, she looked for the purple Gem in her pocket… reminding herself why she was here in the first place. The board and pieces crashed spectacularly onto the floor, spreading like bullets of a grenade.

“Kim?” Henry asked behind her.

Stunned - Kim turned around to see the man standing before her, holding something similar to a photo album and camera. He put the things away on the table, and began picking up the wooden objects on the floor.

“Tried to get a chess board ready…” Kim explained quicker than he could ask.

She walked over to the photo album and opened it. It was completely empty, with a couple of packages of film and a polaroid next to it. Kim could hear him chuckle, while putting all of the pieces in their place.

“Are we making a photo album? Since when?” Kim asked, while Hero stayed weirdly silent.

“Just thought it would be a neat idea,” Henry shrugged, putting the last pawn on the board. “Want to play now?”

Kim nodded, and sat down on the opposite side of the board. She looked at her white pieces, focusing on what could be her first move towards victory. Her sight went from side to side, trying to find the right pawn… which middle one to choose.

The girl - for no reason at all - looked at Hero. He wasn’t looking at her… similarly to Kim, he was only staring at the pieces and trying to… ignore her.

Kim - repeating what she had done moments before - took all of the pieces off the board in one fell swoop.

“We have to talk,” Hero’s attention was taken away from the board, both of them glanced at each other.

“About Charles?” Henry questioned, thinking that they would talk about the same thing once again.

“No…” She began, suddenly a weight blocked her throat, her inner thoughts trying to back away from this, “I am sorry… It has been too much and- I think that I have kind of… ignored you.” His eyes opened wide, before sighing.

“I- Yeah…” He agreed, “I- That thought of dread hasn’t set in yet… Sometimes… Something triggers those memories back and I thought I hid them well, maybe I did, but I just- I want to believe they are alive.”

“They are,” Kim tried to calm down, feeling a giant weight grow inside of her, “They must be… we are alive so they could be as well.”

“I don’t know…” His doubt spread out into his voice - as well as his words, “I cried, I dreamt, I wanted to- I hate that I do not know Kim, the only reason we are alive is Charles…”

“And… if they are dead?” Kim wanted to hear something… happier. She felt streaks of water flow down from her face. Hero took a deep breath, and looked at the empty chess board; the only thing that Kim hadn’t shot into the sky the second time round.

“We have to… somehow… m- move on,” Henry stuttered like Basil, “T- This is real… This really happened…”

“I- Yes…” Kim wanted to feel like that word could help her eyes from the blur, “At- At least we have each other… right?”

“We do…” Hero confirmed, after taking a very long breath, “We will find them, I am sure that all of them are still alive.”

Kim murmured something under her nose, before smiling. She believed his words; a slight glimmer of hope shone through the newly revealed tunnel... 

All of it, everything… was up to Charles.

~~~

#1 - A photo of Kim trying to learn chess. Hero was testing the polaroid while she was studying the starting position; and he accidentally clicked the button. One white pawn seems to be missing and was replaced by a random tiny object made out of glass they had found in one of the cabinets. Its transparent glass helped a lot.

~~~

Charles was standing by, looking at the couple of people moving their new made defences against the incoming monsters… which were mostly giant concrete walls. They still couldn’t really do anything bigger, as the lack of building materials, electricity, and tools made the job a lot more difficult than it would normally be.

The wall looked as if one wrong rotation could cause the entire structure to collapse. Something he was too worried about, as the monsters could probably just… destroy them… Was it actually necessary…

“Uh…” He facepalmed slightly too visibly for his liking, realising that he wasn’t standing at the top of the tower.

He didn’t like being in the city, it made him a lot more anxious than it looked. All of those people believed in him, at least most of them wanted to. Even looking at their eyes was too much, it revealed so much pain he could relate to… that was what he thought. Charles would never know what was actually going inside their heads.

The assumption may not have been right, but the belief was so strong that he couldn’t really not think of it as fact. Those people looked up to him during this dire time, what would happen if they discovered that he is a human being? That he can make mistakes and that he isn’t that good at what he does.

He isn’t a good leader.

Or a good fighter.

That is why he is here.

That is why everything had happened.

His eyes turned back towards the lookout tower.

“It’s for the better,” Charles gaslit himself, “It will be.”

~~~

“The dust is quite pretty,” Henry stated, looking up at the nebula above.

Its beauty never ended.

“I see it like a constant annoyance,” Kim rolled her eyes, grabbing her dirty glasses and cleaning them up the third time already. “Should have taken the cap Charles gave me,”

“We can still turn back,” Hero added in, “There is no stress,”

“And no day and night cycle, no parents to tell me that I am late…” She took a long breath - sighing before putting her glasses back on.

“Or deadlines for due work…” Hero continued her sentence.

“You miss that shit?” She took a step back, her voice rising up in pitch as the college addict next to her smiled.

“Maybe…” He whispered into the void full of dust.

“Come on!” Kim shouted out loud, walking a bit faster than before, “You can’t be serious?! School was the most boring part of the day!”

“And it didn’t help with real life situations like… this one…” Hero focused on the ground, wondering where the dust went.

“Does it help with anything that happens in real life?” She questioned, glancing to the floor as well, trying to see what was so interesting about it.

“With college,” He spoke, clearly not paying attention anymore.

“Ah…” Kim took a long pause before finishing her answer with an enthusiastic: “Yeah…”

They continued to walk silently again, moving closer and closer towards the ruins of the city.

“Have you noticed that the layer of dust never gets larger, even if it is constantly raining?” He asked the girl, still facing the road.

“No…?” She answered, before looking at the floor with him. She had noticed what he had noticed. “Does it go somewhere?”

“Looks like it…” He replied while stretching and looking forward again. “There is no other way,”

“I have to remind you that gravity doesn’t even work here,” Kim shrugged and let out a tiny puff.

The pair walked together, still not in sync, but somewhat closer rhythmically than before. The tallest buildings were in front of them, the nebula casting a shadow onto them. The tallest of them all, a tiny Lookout Spot, was visible far away.

“What if Charles fails?” Hero broke the silence, as they were walking closer to the main city. More and more people were gathering.

“You’ve been thinking ‘bout that too?” Her attention turned to him once again, instead of the Lookout Spot she was staring at. “Quite ridiculous for a person like you,”

“He doesn’t seem like the most trustworthy person…” He stated bluntly.

“I don’t know what we do,” Kim shrugged, “We take matters into our own hands… whatever that means.”

~~~

The Assistant was looking at the wooden pedestal. People were gathering once again… and this was the first time he would be the centre of their attention. He smiled. That smug face quickly disappeared, as he bottled his excitement inside himself.

The guards were standing around him and looking over for anyone and anything that would even scratch him.

Once he got the sign that he could come up on stage and present himself to the only survivors of the apocalypse, he stood up and slowly stepped towards the microphone.

He didn’t check if the volume and settings were right. He knew they were.

“Citizens of Nearby City!” He spoke, ending his short beg for attention with a tinge of excitement. Not too much, he couldn’t overdo it. “Due to our current circumstances, I have two short announcements to make. I hope you give me some of your spare time to listen before going off to your daily duty.”

Quiet murmurs began to grow. The assistant looked up at the skyscraper where the radio tower stood. A small figure could be seen standing above everyone else.

“A child trying to prove that he has some worth…” He smiled to himself, “What a useful tool,” 

He slammed his hands into the wood, stopping all the ever growing whispers. The microphone made the hit a thousand times louder.

“The first one, is the state of the city… As everyone has already spotted, we are probably the last survivors of this horrible world. Luckily, due to the help of Zenith and our leadership team we are slowly working towards making this city sustainable… FOREVER!” He shouted with real excitement.

Others cheered with him, the crowd roared back.

They would become the rebirth of Humanity.

“The second one, is about the recent incident with the attack on our president.” The assistant cursed himself that he hadn’t changed the order of the topics, “We decided that we have to pick a new leader for the apocalypse we live in. A person that will be capable of protecting us and making the right decisions.”

He stopped for a second, trying to see if the mass of people was listening. They were.

“There are two contestants that decided to step up to the position of Apocalypse President… Me and Zenith. In a week the voting ends and we will choose the…

~~~

“You didn’t tell them!” Charles shouted at the assistant, pushing him forward a bit more than anyone expected to.

The crowd had already gone away, as the two of them stood on the pedestal. It was a bit too small, making the push a bit more dangerous than it probably would have been. Luckily, the assistant quite easily balanced himself.

“I didn’t,” He stated calmly, and stepped off the wooden stand himself, “We will deal with this problem alone, no need to scare the public of something they won’t even see.”

“You don’t even know what the danger is!” Charles pointed out loudly.

“I trust you that you will deal with this problem,” The assistant grinned.

Charles began shouting back something… not noticing that two of his housemates were staring at them arguing…

~~~

“We have to do something,” Hero replied, placing the piece on the chess board, concentrating on the game a little less than Kim.

“I already told you that we could try that stealing idea again,” Kim reminded him, looking at the board, scratching her head a bit.

“That won’t work, it will just make him hate us more.” Hero said the same thing once again, leaning back and putting his focus on the cracking ceiling of the house.

“Well is there an option that does not do that?” Kim questioned, taking one of the pawns and pushing it two squares forward. It blocked Hero’s pawn that was headed towards her bishop.

“There has to be…” Hero continued to stare at the ceiling, before lightening up, “Maybe we should just leave him.”

“That won’t make him hate us?” Kim pointed out, analysing the board and her next options.

“It is a lot less aggressive than stealing.” Hero factually pointed out the difference in Kim’s… plan…

“And what then? We will still stay in the city.” Kim continued to question him, “Can you make a move?”

“We would stay here with him or without him by our side.” Henry finally began eyeing the board, staring at his current situation. He quickly made a move before bluntly saying: “It doesn’t make a difference.”

~~~

Charles woke up after another tough day. His throat hurt, his eyes barely opened, his movements felt a lot more sluggish than they were before everything had happened.

Yesterday was… so… tiring…

“A break… perhaps,” He thought, standing up from his bed and dressing up using some of the stolen clothes.

The young adult closed his closet and left his room. The house was strangely quiet. He hadn’t noticed it though, as he walked downstairs. He hadn’t glanced to see if both of the doors to Kim’s and Hero’s bedrooms were closed or open. 

He walked down the staircase, everything in its place. The chess board was hidden, all the plates cleaned, all the books placed in their bookshelves. The home - although it still lacked its windows and half of the kitchen accessories were failing to turn on - looked as if it was… normal.

Human.

It reminded him of his house back home. Not in the space base of Signal Space. Home.

But something was missing… the smell of Hero’s cooking early in the morning.

Then, he noticed that Kim’s shouting was gone.

Then, he realised that…

Charles walked up and knocked on Kim’s door to her bedroom.

No reply.

Confused, but also not really that worried yet, Charles went up to Hero’s bedroom and knocked on it as well.

No reply.

“Are you there?” Charles asked quietly through the door.

No reply.

“Hero?!” He shouted a bit louder than he wanted to, “Kim?!”

No reply.

Charles opened the door to Hero’s bedroom and…

They were gone.

they left…

everyone always did…

Chapter Text

“How did Charles react?” Sunny asked, sitting next to Hero under the tree he had created.

The pink and purple leaves of the large (and slightly mutated looking) cherry blossom were shielding them from the Grimd falling onto their heads. The air was much clearer in this one place of the city. The tree hadn’t grown too much lately, but that was probably because Sunny wasn’t putting too much of his… energy into it.

“Yeah… it wasn’t the best,” Hero continued to tell his story, “But looking back at it, I think we should have not let him back into our lives as fast as we did. He hurt us even more in the end.”

“...” Sunny stared at him, not wanting to tell them that he already knew what he was talking about. 

Sunny’s eye also tried not to stare at a blurry image of Aubrey slowly walking towards them.

“He was right about following the Message though, and I hope he will help you with whatever this is…“ Henry pointed at the eye with the eyepatch on, “Once you finally accept that he should train you.”

“Is this what all of this was about?” Sunny groaned, “To soften me up so that I train with him? I already told you that Cyzor won’t return. He is-”

“SUNNY!” Aubrey screamed, huffing and almost running into the tree herself.

The girl quickly sat between him and Hero, forming a kind of triangle. Only Kel and Basil weren’t here… and also Mari… and-

“You got a sudden surge of energy?” Sunny pointed out, reminding her of how sleepy she was barely an hour ago.

“...Yep!” She said a bit louder than she wanted, “I couldn’t sleep with all those thoughts in my head again… y’know. I think I should just finish this and get it over with… “

Hero silently stood up and began walking back home when suddenly he was pulled back towards where he sat.

“You don’t know the full story either.” Aubrey smiled, and began finishing her part.

~~~

Entry 34 - Hello, this is Prin writing here. The Signal Space station has been finally (mostly) finished. There are still some rooms to add, some places to expand later on, but we have the basis for our whole operation right here! My life’s work is finally done, now I can focus on someone else that may become someone even more important than me later on… Maybe the next leader of Signal Space? We do not live forever after all.

<~~~>

The past couple of hours had been dreadful for Aubrey especially. After a couple of hours of driving, and complete boredom; Kel - who hadn’t found anything on the ground for the whole trip, decided that he would begin exploiting the magical abilities he possessed. First, he decided to turn the rainbow crystal into a camera. He began recording the different phenomena. Like dust, or the ground, or the weird ground, or the car, or the ground (again), or the nebula, or the weirder ground.

It didn’t take him a long while to realise that the environment wasn’t fun to record, and so he turned to recording Aubrey and the rest of the passengers in the car. 

It was dreadful. 

It began quite normally, with Kel asking questions and asking them to introduce themselves to the camera. Even Vance joined in, making a couple of jokes and almost putting all of them in danger by making the car do a 360 spin. 

Before they continued their drive; Adra, Aubrey, Mikhael and Kel went to grab everything that fell out of the car. Instead of helping them, the addicted Orange Joe drinker had decided to record them doing that. It quickly led to Aubrey grabbing the rainbow glowing camera and forcing Kel to actually help them.

The moment they jumped back into the car and drove off, Kel got the camera back and decided to do something more stupid than his new hobby beforehand. He asked Aubrey to record him drinking as much Orange Joe as he could in one sip. 

To say that he began choking and dying was an understatement, as his friend was scared that she would have to perform CPR on him. Luckily, it wasn’t the case, as he had bounced back a few coughs after.

His camera shenanigans didn’t stop at that…

“Aubrey!” Kel shouted with excitement that felt a bit more drawn out than it probably should’ve been; something Aubrey thought she was only imagining due to her… lack of that emotion…

“What?” She asked in a monotone voice, kind of tired of everything.

She continued staring into the distance, keeping herself balanced from the tiny jumps of the truck.

“We should try to play Chess!” He stated, putting the rainbow camera on the floor and (while it was somehow making a TV show-like-movie on it) took out one of the many chess boards they had in their stash.

Aubrey and Kel - with the help of Adra - put all the pieces in their place and then realised that the game was kind of unplayable. Not only because of the car bouncing every 5 seconds, throwing the pieces up into the air. Kel and Aubrey had no knowledge about how to play chess. Adra had to help them understand the rules, and even then it felt frustrating to put pieces in the same place over and over and over and…

“AGH!” Aubrey shouted, took the board and threw it out of the car.

The board crashed into the rock, never to be seen again…

“You could have just packed it back into the pile,” Kel stated, picking up the chess pieces and throwing them one by one, seeing them as useless.

“It is not like I am in the mood to play anything anymore.” Aubrey sat down on the cold metal floor that was their mini-truck.

Kel began to look through the pile of things - camera in his left hand - and found a package of another game…

“Aubrey!” His voice seemed- “I found UNO!”

Aubrey stood up, and before Kel could actually begin unpacking the tiny paper box, she snatched it and threw it out of the vehicle as far as possible.

“I said I don’t want to play… okay?” She tried to calm herself down… why was she this angry again…? “Besides, I'd rather try chess again than play that goddamn card game.”

She took the rainbow camera, and stopped filming everyone. She whispered to the stone, turning it into a pillow and tried to lie on it. Sadly the texture of the crystal didn’t change, making it the worst pillow ever.

While Kel was looking at the pile, trying to find another Orange Joe, Aubrey turned the rainbow crystal back into its true form. A perfectly cut gem, glowing brighter than a lamp, but not bright enough to blind her or anyone at that. It was smooth in texture, compared to the rash and gravelly stone they were riding on.

She noticed that the stone itself was also perfectly clean. With no fingerprints or dust covering it. The dust falling onto it seemed to… disappear.

Kel - with his drink in hand - sat next to her.

“It is going to help us find Hero and Basil and my parents and everyone…” Kel stated, enchanted in the same way as his peer.

“And… what do we do after that?” She passed the stone to him and looked at how much space they had in the back… it was not a lot. “We won’t even fit them here, and living in this car is already kind of… tiring.”

“I will think about it once we find them!” Kel smiled at her, creepily…

~~~

The compass needle was glowing far brighter than it had been moments ago.

They had been driving in the middle of nothing for a long-

“Guys..?” Mikhael was the first one to notice the new location ahead of them this time, “This place doesn’t look too friendly…” 

Vance stayed silent, but opened his eyes wide to see what was ahead of him. He gasped out of shock. 

The ones at the back, went to the edges of the car. 

Kel turned the crystal into binoculars, his face stuttering and silent as the sight of the place ahead of them was something none of them were prepared for.

A couple metres away from them, there was a giant ruined building… a shopping mall. They were headed straight towards the pedestrian entrance, as the mall itself was tilted a little due to the underground parking. The glass that made up the front was completely shattered in pieces, only leaving remains of the frame as a bunch of metal was lying on the dusty ground. 

The sign that was supposed to be hanging on the glass wall, was now dug into the rock. None of the letters were standing up, only tiny cables were left hanging. The ceiling of the place looked like it had collapsed, and the wall in front of them looked as if it was barely standing up. There were no lights coming from the inside; it was all grey and dark, not visible to the naked eye. 

As they got closer, the stench of blood and dead bodies hit them again, worse than their own sweat and dirty clothes. Kel could see small pools of blood and water on the ground, something he instantly stopped looking at. Sadly, Kel turned his rainbow binoculars towards the sources… 

He vomited outside straight after, his stomach turning and collapsing on itself. 

His grunts and Orange Joe filled vomit was expected, as everyone else almost joined in. The whole sight made them feel drowsy and completely horrible. Aubrey could feel her mind fall into its lightheaded - careless - mode, her body slowly losing its energy it had moments ago. She fell onto the metal ground of the vehicle, barely stopping herself from hitting her head with her weak arms. 

Mikhael closed his eyes, even if it didn’t help him with the awful smell that he was breathing in. 

Vance, who had to keep his eyes open, tried not to look forward as much as possible. 

Adra had hidden behind the front seats, not willing to even leave the mini-truck until they left. 

Their ride was speeding towards the mall, the image becoming more vivid with each blink. It was not something they were ready to see, ever. Kel turned the rainbow stone back into the trusty compass. 

It was glowing, very strongly.

“There is someone in there…” He whispered louder than he had expected to.

Aubrey saw the compass pointing straight at the building. She went to Vance to ask him to steer away a bit so that they can check if they have to go there. 

Vance turned around, the wheels causing them to distance themselves from the nightmare of a ruin. The compass needle moved towards the mall, making Kel take a long and deep frustrated breath.

“There is someone in the mall,” Kel stated louder, completely certain that they had to enter the building and find the person before all of them lost their… innocence? 

Kel had spent the past three to four days happier than he thought he would have been exploring the land of the end of the world and messing around with a rainbow magic stone. Yes, there were monsters and dangers and they could still very easily die… but it was somehow crazy to think that he might have been enjoying the end that much.

And now, looking at those dead corpses, riding towards them in hopes of finding their “friend” alive, was dreadful. He laughed and played stupid games while these people rotted to death and bled out because of this catastrophe. 

The whole world was probably destroyed, billions of humans dead or dying. 

The monsters that had attacked them would have certainly killed them if not for the truck and the rainbow crystal. Thousands of people were probably stuck on islands, dying and seeing their families die. Many would have probably killed themselves by jumping into the void.

He and his friends - the people on the vehicle - were lucky, the luckiest they could have possibly been. 

They were given the possibility to survive, to live and to laugh. To think of the world not as a sad dangerous one, but as a barren wasteland with a spark of hope; a rainbow glow that made them live. 

Kel looked at the glowing compass, shining brightly its colours at their disgusted and broken faces. Aubrey stood next to Kel, she didn’t say anything. The girl hid her face in the pink hair that was slowly turning back into its original colours. It was very messy and greasy, like all of theirs.

She grabbed the compass with her left hand, holding it as tightly as Kel. 

The more Kel thought about it, the more he realised that they were getting completely miserable. Even with all of these riches and luck, they were still some kind of homeless people that shouldn’t live like this. The happy moments they had spent together for the past couple of days turned into a giant blur that he could distance himself from, as the memories of Faraway returned… 

His thoughts would be stopped once again, by a tiny shake of Aubrey’s arm. He turned his head towards her, trying to see her face she concealed. He could hear a single sob come out of her before he decided to put the compass into his dusty pocket and hug her.

Aubrey began to cry, Kel joined her moments after. 

Mikhael and Vance put on headphones they had found, and focused on the empty and less tainted walls of the mall that seemed a lot bigger than they were a few hundred metres away. 

Adra just stared at them, her eyes as empty as Sunny’s corpse…

In a moment of tragedy like this, she would be left to grief alone, as she thought she deserved.

~~~

The five were now standing in front of the entrance of the mall, from an angle that would not show any dead bodies lying around. There was a large enough opening close to the ground entrance. It was originally a door, but the hinges seemed to break off during the storm and now it was quite open. 

The car stood - turned off with Vance holding onto the keys as tightly as Kel was holding onto the flashlight of a rainbow crystal. They didn’t know if they wanted to come in.

Aubrey looked at the tiny compass on the back of the eternal flashlight, it made Kel slightly weaker, but it was worth the giant light. It was still pointing towards the building that they dreaded to enter.

“I am staying here,” Vance stated, turning back and jumping into the front of the vehicle. They could hear a loud thump before the door closed. “Someone has to… right?” 

Kel felt his foot back away, but it returned to its normal state once he looked at Aubrey’s piercing stare. Mikhael - who was behind Aubrey already - jumped back into the car as well.

“I- I am staying here as well,” Mikhael hid from Aubrey, who was beginning to feel anger leave her ears and her eyes looking at Adra and Kel. “This is too much…”

“Too much for a life?!” Aubrey retaliated, “There is someone that we know in there!” 

She pointed at the ruins behind them. The smell was not getting any better with time. Mikhael stood up and froze before staying in the vehicle. Aubrey grunted with anger, and pushed Adra and Kel towards her. 

With Aubrey in front, they approached the entrance. Adra turned around her head to face the vehicle. She took a deep breath and accepted Aubrey’s decision. Even if she would be completely useless.

The three were now three to four metres away from the opening. It looked a lot more sinister from closeby. Kel was in front, holding the rainbow flashlight. The ground below seemed to be a bit wet, they could hear a couple of water drops falling down from the cold and cracking concrete of the mall. 

A tiny pool of water gathered on the stone, it seemed to be repelling the dust. Compared to their world and dirt, the stone didn’t seem to get wet or absorb water in any way possible, something that made this place feel even more alien than it already was.

Kel jumped, and safely landed on the cracked concrete. The cold floor was a bit moist, water slowly flowing down the floor outside, as the building was at a small angle here. He had put the flashlight on the floor before helping Adra and Aubrey get up. 

The corridor was surprisingly small, as Kel could barely fit in it with Adra and Aubrey next to him. They silently stood up and gathered everything. Tiny drops of water echoed through the hall of cracked concrete and broken lights.

The boy lit up the walls and floor in front of them. The corridor was extremely dark, and lacking any dust in the air. The tiles were cracked and some of them had left the grid they were supposed to be in. Water was landing on some of them, dropping once or twice throughout the place. 

The walls were also cracking, their plain white colour no longer there as it was now grey and full of long black lines. Their footsteps were echoing throughout the entire place, louder than water. Aubrey had stepped into one of the tiny pools of that sacred transparent liquid, she jumped and squealed before returning to the silence.

Kel turned as the corridor had led them right, he lit up the ceiling for the first time to see the ceiling tiles hanging above them. Wires and pipes were broken or mixed with each other, electricity sparking above them. Some of the lamps were already lying on the floor, while others acted like movable obstacles they decided not to touch, in case they would get zapped in a way or another.

After another turn, there were some steps up. The angle they were at was getting worse and worse, making walking up stairs more difficult than it should be. The steps were imperfect and full of water, as one of the water pipes above them seemed to be the source of the pools. Kel shone on the ceiling above them, a larger water pipe was broken and water was still slowly dropping from it.

“Are you sure we want to go there?” Kel asked, seeing a bit more light come out of the end of the corridor. 

He couldn’t really see what was outside the corridor too much, but he thought he was seeing some kind of weird shop panel and a couple of couches. The whole thing was tilted, making it look a lot less safe than this place already was. Aubrey punched his back lightly, pushing him a bit forward the stairs and almost making him trip. 

She puffed, determined to get the person and get out as fast as possible. Adra - who was at the back - didn’t think of turning back either. The two of them forced Kel to stay, his compass was needed after all.

Kel was the first one to reach the inside of the mall. He was standing on the first floor, only one floor was below him, and one was above him. The ash of the void was flying down towards the ground and the multiple floors from the broken glass ceiling that should have been above them… it was sadly below them. 

The concrete platform he was standing on was made out of white square tiles and a fence that would make sure no one would jump. The platform extended a couple of metres outwards, before the giant hole in the centre showed itself. The platforms and the building were at an angle, that the ground floor in front of them was almost at the same height as they were right now on the first floor. 

The ceiling above them was luckily almost intact, with some of the lights floating on electricity wires that were still somehow on and pipes that were trying to connect to each other but couldn’t due to gravity pulling them down too much. The other parts of this floor were not so lucky, as multiple rocks and giant heaps of what should have been a stable place, had collapsed and fallen. Giant holes and piles of concrete were on the ground, with many human bodies lying crushed and bleeding under them. 

The many shops of this place had collapsed or killed the people inside. Pools of blood and water were everywhere, all of them clean of the dust that plagued this land. Everything was flipped or on the floor, or broken into pieces. Every single shop looked like it had been raided and destroyed with multiple sticks of dynamite, twice.

He felt someone grab his left shoulder suddenly before pulling it away. Kel turned around to see Aubrey and Adra rushing towards the closest store. The boy ran with them, entering what would have been a clothes shop. 

They hid behind the wall of clothes that had fallen down, kneeling onto the cold concrete of the store. A foul smell was emanating from the counter. Aubrey peeked from the top a little, before hiding and huffing from stress.

“What?!” Kel whispered, looking at the two of his friends next to him, not understanding why they were hiding. Aubrey closed his mouth and answered quite quickly.

“There was a group of creatures… different ones but weirdly similar…” Aubrey replied quietly. 

Kel saw Aubrey’s eyes shaking, terrified. Kel saw Adra reacting the same, even worse as her hands were shaking. Kel decided to stand up from the pile for a second to see the creatures for himself. He didn’t have to wait, as a pack of flying cylinders with two eyes on the opposite sides, two very quick wings and an antennae flew past the shop. 

There were about seven of them. The only thing that was similar between these eyeballs and the monster they had encountered before, was their skin… as if they were made out of the same exact thing.

“We have to do this quickly,” Kel stated, “But first… maybe we should change our clothes? Do we have anything to store additional clothes for Mikhael and Vance?” 

Aubrey grunted but agreed with the sentiment. They needed some newer clothes. Adra, trying to sneak but being louder than she had been before, got to the place where they stored plastic bags. The next few minutes were them picking up a full bag of new clothes they could use. 

All of them hoped that they would not be tainted with the smell of the corpse behind the counter. They did it in a rush, picking clothes that they didn’t even like in hopes of the fact that someone would wear them, so that they could get out of this place as fast as they could.

The three survivors left the store after making sure no monsters were in sight. Adra silently agreed to holding the bag, as she was the only one with empty hands up to this point. The eyes were nowhere in sight. Kel - with the compass in his hand - saw that it was pointing towards the other side of the building and slightly to the left. 

Aubrey was the first one to run, seeing the direction and sprinting towards it with her bat in hand. Her eyes did everything to ignore the piles of rock, blood and rotting flesh around them.

The first shop they sped by was a shop with a ton of glass and pieces of ceramic plates on the floor. It seemed like the potential shaking that had happened not only broke everything inside of it, but also caused the people inside to die, as their bodies were full of little shards that had pierced through their skin. They luckily didn’t see them as they passed by.

Kel, leading the group, could not stop staring at the shop that he wanted to enter very badly. It was a shop full of the latest TVs, consoles, devices, games and everything! Robbing that place would not be morally wrong, as everyone was dead here and this couldn’t go to waste. That was not enough, as a smell of blood and the ceiling that had fallen onto the devices, probably caused them to be utterly useless. Kel slowed down a little, beginning to hear huffing behind him.

Aubrey was right next to him. She almost ran into Kel as he had stopped without any prior warning. Adra - on the other hand - was slightly behind, not used to this kind of workout, especially with a bag like this. The slope was now dangerous, as slipping would not only lead them to hitting a pile of concrete, glass shards, bloody water and metal bars but also it could be so bad that they would fall down a floor. Something that would be almost certain death.

Luckily, they were already halfway there. Kel stood next to the hole that the lift and escalators would fill (if they weren’t broken). They were right next to the food court - or rather its remains. The food, if it wasn’t on the dusty floor and hadn’t been next to a couple of human corpses under the different kinds of furniture and stone, would still be edible. 

Aubrey, waiting for Adra, ran towards the broken vending machine and took a bottle of water and a glass bottle of Orange Joe for her friend. Kel drank his almost instantly, before throwing the glass bottle onto the ground floor.

It shattered; a couple of glass pieces firing up towards them, none of them able to reach them from that distance and height. Aubrey, angry at her friend, spun around in search of any monsters that could potentially approach them. 

They didn’t seem to be anywhere close. Kel looked at her a bit stunned by her expression. That stun disappeared in an instant as he got hit as lightly as she possibly could by Aubrey.

“Ow…” He reacted, not really hurt by what she had done, “Why?” 

The three began walking towards the right, where the glowing compass needle pointed. Aubrey didn’t seem to hear his question, as their footsteps echoed throughout the ruined structure. The wet tiles didn’t seem to be helping them a lot, as walking normally would cause them to fall. Luckily, the piles of concrete that had been held up by the metal fence were there to help them.

The dust that was falling from the black sky above, was continuing to pile itself up on the tiles. Most of it, though, was landing on the pools of red or transparent liquid; disappearing in an instant. Their breaths bounced off walls of a place that had been full of life prior to the storm in Faraway. 

The smell of rot and the sight of blood didn’t get easier to think about with more time spent there, that is why they didn’t think. The trio had their brains turned off, trying not to think about what they were looking at.

Adra was curious enough to look around the place with a more detailed analysis. First, she looked up. Above them were black walls and numbers that pointed towards other rooms. It reminded her of the cinema she used to go to when she was younger… 

The bridge that had been in the middle of the two corridors on each side, was now completely broken and lying in the piles below. She wished that she could go up there now and watch a movie for free, but alas the escalators were completely broken with the lifts up. Finding a way up would take them too much time. 

There were a couple of more shops she could see; a shop with toys for kids and board games, which probably included LEGO and many other versions of Monopoly, chess and UNO they could find. She was never a fan of board games in general, mostly because their prices were too high and she was too dumb to understand the thousands of rules all of these games had. 

There was a shop with sports shoes and sports accessories, some new footwear would be useful for them after all. If they had the time, maybe they could stop there. Another shop she had eyed down was a giant one - at the ground floor - which was a chain of giant grocery shop supermarkets. The amount of food they could probably find there would last them for weeks! 

One of the last shops that caught her eye was a shop full of flowers and gardening tools. They were on the floor and most of the flowers were already dying or dead, but the tools could be useful in more than one way. All of these thoughts withered away like these flowers burned up on a hot and dry day, as the stink of human flesh under rock and blood leaking through the pipes above and below, made her shiver and shake. This place was full of corpses - something that she still couldn’t comprehend.

This time, Aubrey was the first one to go into danger, as she felt like Kel was stalling a little bit too much. She wanted to get out of here as quickly as possible after all. The piles of concrete were a bit less stable than she thought they would be, proved by the fact that when she jumped on them, a couple of tiny stones turned and fell down towards the ground floor. The pile of concrete was also not a nice thing to stand on, as she could feel the irregularities and the roughness.

She helped Kel up, by taking the flashlight and helping him stabilise on the concrete. The girl smiled before giving him the crystal back. Aubrey stood towards the edge of the pile - waiting for Adra to come with them - while Kel was looking at the tiny compass on the tool, trying to find the shop they should enter. 

Most of them would be very difficult to get into, as most of the items in the shop were on the barrier, on a pile, on a wall or on the ground floor. The angle and the liquids that were covering the floors of these places, made them into difficult obstacle courses instead of a shopping mall… something no one asked for.

“Can you come here already?!” Aubrey asked, looking at the woman - who was probably spaced out - and back at Kel - who was preparing to jump into a shop without thinking. 

It looked like another food related one, though this one reminded her of a fancy restaurant compared to the fast food chains that they had passed next to.

“I think I will stay here,” Adra stated, not even looking at Aubrey, “On the lookout… you know?” 

Even, she was not sure that this was a proper answer, her voice was still thinking about her decision when she was speaking. Aubrey sighed, knowing that it would probably be easier without her. With her bat in hand, the girl with bubblegum hair went back to Kel. Adra sat down on the floor, before regretting her decision as it wasn’t dry yet.

At the same time, Kel was trying to jump up. He already took a couple of small hops, too scared of actually jumping higher, and he was nowhere close enough to catch the metal bar that acted as the past door frame. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and lept up into the sky. 

He barely stuck the landing back down as the rough ground almost bent his leg too much. The three of them could hear more tiny rocks fall onto the floor below… some of them fell into tiny puddles of water, making tiny oceans wave.

“What the hell was that?” Aubrey asked, standing right by him and watching the jump herself, “Can’t you just ask the crystal to help us up?” 

Kel looked at the flashlight he had put on the pile of concrete. It was carefully balancing itself in between two somewhat big holes it could fall into. Aubrey took the flashlight and gave it to Kel. He nodded, trying to stay silent as Aubrey had asked before. This time though, he couldn’t stay silent. There were no monsters nearby after all…

“Give us a way to go up there,” Kel ordered quietly as he pointed up with his finger. 

The rainbow rock swiftly changed its form from the trusty flashlight with a compass to a gun with an anchor looking hook as its ammo. The gun itself was red, while the hook was red and purple. Aubrey suddenly grabbed the gun and shot it upwards before he could realise that he couldn’t pull the red trigger anymore. 

The red hook flew up into the sky without any problems. It pierced the air and dug itself into the wall, a red glow emanating from the rope that was holding the gun and the hook together. 

Aubrey felt that she was being pulled up, and the mechanism inside the hook was accelerating quite quickly, making her rise up faster and faster, until she was floating a couple metres at the top.

“Hey!” Kel jumped and waved while Aubrey’s eyes and legs shook in fear, “Why did you do that?”

“I- I just wanted to get this over with!” Aubrey shouted back, looking around to find somewhere to jump to. 

The shop she was now in was almost flipped over at a right angle, making this place seem more like a wall than an actual place people could shop in. Around her, she could see shelves that had been full of bread and other bread-like products. 

She could see some doughnuts and cakes further away, some of them were already rotting… even if that process was slower than the one of the bodies.

“Well, where are you now?” Kel replied loudly, looking around and trying to find a way to help Aubrey. 

The girl felt her hand slowly hurt, as she continued to hold onto the gun that made her fly up. She didn’t think of the consequences of shooting it, and the teen just realised that they were not immortal… they could still join the rotting bodies of this place, the ones she tried to stray away from. 

She felt a shiver run down her spine, thinking about how her corpse would look.

“I didn’t know!” Aubrey roared back, the ocean in her mind chaotic and enraged. 

Her hand began to feel numb, her legs continued to float. There was a chance she could slide down to safety, in the pools of blood, water and misery, but would that actually stop her fall. The tiles that had made the past floor were also not the smoothest things in existence; many things had made small dents in them.

“Can’t you just slide down?!” Kel asked, he wasn’t in her view as he was somewhere on the side. 

His voice was still loud enough for it to echo throughout the entire abandoned building. He also finally caught onto her main idea, making her a lot more sure about this decision. The height of it and the fact that the floor was the opposite of a slide, made it a bit less of a good idea.

“Isn’t this too dangerous?!” Aubrey questioned, her eyes still shaking. 

She could feel her bat slowly slide off of her left hand, as she still held onto the grappling gun very very tightly. Their life depended on this one rock after all. Its glow wasn’t getting any stronger or any weaker. Its surfaces were colourful and vividly shimmering with light, making the whole place seem less creepy and menacing than it actually was.

“Has any of this been safe, Aubrey?!” Kel retaliated, too stressed to talk and to think of a way out for Aubrey. 

There was nothing he could use, nothing he could grab, nothing to work with that quickly. Aubrey didn’t respond to Kel’s answer, as it was completely right. This whole thing was not safe. 

This place didn’t look nice, and even if it had a lot of things for them that could be useful, the amount of risks they had to take just to walk a couple of metres was enough to show that this place was unfriendly.

The girl with bubblegum hair was holding onto a gun that looked as if it was glued to the wall. Its shine bounced off the particles that were falling from the ceiling. 

The dust - the ash - didn’t think. 

It didn’t live.

It didn’t know it was covering the floor and dying from the wet floor. 

The entire place was filled with an aura no human or living being could understand from this perspective. Places like these were few and far between, as they had spread apart far and wide through this wasteland. There were more places like these, more homes with people, more cities and malls to find. And all of them were mostly abandoned… like this one.

“JUMP TO ME!” Aubrey heard a familiar shout coming out of the darkness. 

She could see a silhouette of a person come out of the ashes. They were standing on the shelves, carefully balancing themselves not to fall down towards Kel. With her hands numb and sliding away from the rock, she pulled on the gun to loosen its hook and pushed herself as much as possible towards the mysterious person.

She quickly fell down towards them, sliding on the floor that had become the wall a bit, and was luckily caught as much as the person could. They both fell down, making a loud metallic thud, luckily staying on the very uncomfortable metal of the shelves. 

Aubrey still had the grappling gun and the bat in hand, even if this wasn’t something she would try again. In front of her, was a face of someone she didn’t know for long, but someone she recognised.

“Polly?” Aubrey asked, stunned at the person they had found. 

The gun was so bright it was clearly showing her face, her greasy and untidy hair, her ragged clothes and a couple of scars on her hands, legs and face, they were tiny but some of them were still red. The woman that stood before her smiled, as much as she possibly could, before looking at the tool itself.

“Polly?!” Kel repeated from below, seeing the familiar face as well. 

He was even more flabbergasted than the pink-haired girl. The two stood up and hopped down to Kel, who helped them land safer than before. 

Aubrey felt her hands hurt a little, as well as her legs being a bit tired. Now that Polly wasn’t hiding in the darkness, they could see her better. Her eyes were red and the bags under them didn’t suggest the best sleeping conditions. She looked a bit thinner than before as well.

Polly looked around, the first time she actually decided to leave the bakery as it was a safe enough place with enough food for a couple of days… 

She wasn’t in shock, as she had looked out of the metal bars and walls to see the outside place, but the size of the whole mall and the fact that it was completely abandoned made her somewhat sadder than before. 

The fact that these kids - she knew - had tracked her down and were probably able to keep her alive for another week or two, was a blessing she should have probably prayed for. What she didn’t expect was to see her old friend with them.

“Adra?” Polly approached Sunny’s mother, who was staring back at her. 

Adra was frozen, seeing her breathing and living… her eyes shaking and wide open. 

Suddenly, their meeting was cut short as a group of six eyes was flying right at them. Some of them were already so close, their eyes had opened up and began to spit out tentacle looking tongues out of their tiny mouths.

Aubrey and Kel turned around, before hastily running and jumping off the concrete pile they had been standing on. It slightly shook, but that was not enough to make it fall completely. 

The flying monsters were looking at the four humans, surprised by the fact they were alive and somehow well, but not enough to feel anything other than hunger. They had already split and killed multiple of these beings, another four wouldn’t stop them!

“Turn into a weapon of mass destruction!” Kel shouted out louder than ever before - somehow not freezing out of fear - while Aubrey stood next to him, forgetting that she had a bat in hand. His heart rate and adrenaline was turned up to the maximum, the boredom of life accumulating into a giant explosion of excitement.

Polly pulled the kids a bit forward, reminding them that they had to leave. Adra was already running - trying not to slip with the bag in hand. The four citizens of Faraway began to run. During all of this, the rainbow stone drained from its source, turning into a double-sided scythe. 

With a handle in the middle, the red, blue and purple glowing weapon was not only giant but also sharper than hell itself. Its blades were filled with tiny spikes that resembled teeth, while being perfectly symmetrical with its other half. The flying creatures were already getting dangerously close.

Kel - holding the weapon he had created - decided to attack the danger head on. One of the eyes was already preparing to grab him, and it was by far the closest one. As it was perfectly in range, he swung the blades towards it. By a slight margin - he didn’t miss the body of the double-eyed bats - hitting it straight into its mouth. 

The creature screamed and fell down, the dark blood that was running inside of it stuck to the blade, while the boy struggled to keep control of the weapon by barely being able to spin it to the next blade.

He dashed back, running to his friends who were already getting close to the exit. Kel, with the giant weapon in hand, had just realised how scary this whole situation is. These eyes could potentially kill them… well maybe… probably… Out of nowhere, something tugged his left leg back, making him fall down onto the slippery concrete. 

The one with the scythes turned around to see a black, strong, long and sticky tongue come out of its mouth. More tentacles were quickly approaching. In response, Kel took the weapon and slashed the eye very easily, cutting it into half and throwing the rest of its body into the wall, splashing its blood all over.

Before he was able to continue running, two more of them came, already ready to grab and make him fall. 

Luckily, this time prepared, with his heart beating faster than an engine of a speeding car, he jumped and spun around with the blade, cutting only one of the eyes mid air as he missed the other one. It didn’t have the time to open its other eye as Kel was able to kill it with a second swing.

He looked behind himself, his shirt covered with tidbits of this sticky substance, and saw that the rest of the eyes were a bit too far behind him. He saw that Aubrey was shouting something - Kel couldn’t process it as this was too stressful and overwhelming for him already. His legs automatically sprang forwards, dodging the ruins that could have caused him to trip. He couldn’t feel his breathing until now, everything seemed to slowly turn into a blur…

Kel felt someone catch him, it was Aubrey. She looked worried and also very angry. He couldn’t care less as they pushed him into the emergency exit where they came from. The pipes and weird stairs were a lot harder to traverse with the giant scythes in hand, but he somehow managed. 

Everything had happened so fast that… he couldn’t process it. 

He just wanted to save his friends… 

Why were they angry? 

He just wanted to be useful… A Hero…

Is Hero here?

Would he be… alive?

Kel feel water flow down from his face, probably falling from the pipes…

Would anything please them? 

He could hear some people talking and murmuring in the background, everything seemed like one giant creature attacking and stomping him. It didn’t feel right, he couldn’t feel his body, or think alone in his mind. Kel felt like he was a walking corpse, like one of the ones they had seen in the shops.

More shouting and words were spoken, none of which Kel could understand. He felt someone or something push him onto another metal surface. A couple minutes after, he could hear rumbling and more talking, it was a happier tone than before. 

The world he was looking at was completely black, only three specks of purple light were visible to him.

That was the last thing he saw, before he fell asleep.

~~~

“A campfire?” Polly questioned their decision to stop in the middle of nowhere, just to make a campfire. 

It didn’t make any sense! They didn’t have wood or anything to light it with. They saved her life though, and so she listened. Polly was the last one to leave the mini-truck, except Kel who was sleeping soundly after that entire situation. He looked a lot less pale now.

She raised her hand up a bit to catch some of the ash falling from the sky. How didn’t it gather on the ground too much? Has it rained like this since they came here, or was it raining since the creation of this weird world? 

Its texture was impossible to comprehend and understand, as the small amount that gathered on her hand was not enough to feel it. As if it didn’t really exist.

The woman walked towards the four people that she would probably spend the rest of her life with, they were sitting on rainbow benches with a colourful looking campfire in the middle. 

The colours of it were slowly changing into ones that looked more natural to them… more real to their previous lives that were taken away. They were already talking and laughing.

She sat next to her… friend. Adra, the only one she had a closer connection with. Right now, she was concentrating on teaching Vance and Aubrey how to play chess, a game she never quite liked. Adra seemed to be giving tips to both of them, trying to guide them a bit.

Didn’t they care about… everything else?

About the deaths? Blood?

These thoughts slowly disappeared, through the power of laughs and the surprisingly comforting fire making smoke in the middle, replaced by a more relaxing feeling. 

“Maybe this really helps?” She asked herself, staying silent. 

After a short while, a comforting and very welcome tune began playing from the campfire. The tune was soon accompanied by frustrated groans and giggling, before they started another round.

Small ambers of the fake fire comforted the group in the sunless sky. Showing them that they can live… another day.

Chapter Text

Entry 37 - Hello, this is Prin writing here. The boy has been slowly learning about the Feloids and their magical powers. I would like to write more, but I feel like I can’t… I think I upset him. He hasn’t left his room today.

<~~~>

The ash that was slowly going down fell onto the vehicle. Its wheels were spinning quickly, as Vance was talking to Mikhael, not really focused on the road in front of them. There weren’t any walls or anything that could potentially block them. Maybe a tiny hole or bump sometimes made them jump, but nothing that they weren’t already used to. Mikhael was telling him about something connected to the game they were playing at the back, or trying to.

The back of the vehicle was completely filled up, as all of their items and things were stored at the back, held tightly by the rainbow crystal. 

Aubrey, Kel, Polly and Adra were sitting in the back of the truck. Staring at the nebula for the millionth time, trying to sleep off this nightmare or… well… try to talk to each other.

Kel was unavailable, as his eyes constantly went from the compass to the road forward and back to the rainbow compass again.

Mikhael was sleeping more and more in the front seat, while Vance didn’t seem to sleep at all… only taking breaks when they setup a campfire which they did less and less…

Polly was… there… she just… looked so… not here…

Adra seemed to just remind her of Sunny. She was lying down on the mattress as normal, looking up at the nebula spinning round and round.

And she… Aubrey… was looking out to see if there was anything except them and this car.

The answer was always the same.

Bored out of her mind, she approached Kel and sat next to him. He didn’t react to her.

She waved her hand in front of him. Kel just grabbed it and continued staring at the compass. His grip was strong and his arms were weirdly tense these days… Days… how many days has it been?

Aubrey took a random object off the floor - it felt quite tiny - and put it on the compass.

Kel - not really thinking about it - threw the penny he had found out of the car…

Never to be seen again.

Forgotten…

~~~

Vance was getting kind of tired. Not only mentally - which he was since they had come into this weird place - but physically. His arms were stiff and numb from holding the steering wheel constantly, his legs and body felt as if it was turned into concrete, he hadn’t really moved enough for the past few days… maybe he should have gone with them into that nightmarish mall.

Nah, he thought. 

Remembering Kel’s pale face and the horrified faces of Aubrey, Adra and Polly. Not that he was surprised, but Adra almost shouted at him louder than Aubrey did that day… He never thought that someone could rival her in a shouting contest. Nonetheless, here he was. 

The world in front of him was blank and empty, like a canvas of a dead artist. The dust always gathered on the front window, making it ever so slightly more annoying than this place should be…

I should be happy I am alive, the owner of the vehicle had just realised that calling his life annoying at the moment would be the least important thing ever to happen. 

He had expected to die a week or two ago, but with his luck in finding Mikhael - the graffiti boy who was sleeping in the front seat next to him, snoring - and Kel, Aubrey and Adra, he was still alive. 

They looked at the horrific deaths and at this completely dead world that didn’t want them to breathe clean air again… yet that didn’t happen. 

They were somehow still here.

The remnants of humans they saw were just things that most - if not everyone except them - got to see. 

Most people would be already dead or dying at this moment right now. This single thread of thoughts caused him to suddenly stop the car. 

The layer of dust stopped being thrown by the wheels of the vehicle, while it turned a bit and drifted a lot. The wheezing stopped quite quickly, as he huffed and looked behind him to see the rest of the people sleeping.

He moved his hands for the first time in ages, the rubber that he had touched with his fingers for days now was beginning to wear off. He could see its patterns imprinted onto his hands when he flipped them over. 

Vance slammed the door open, almost hitting it against the vehicle. Slightly shocked by the shaking of the mini-truck he had caused in such a calm time, he jumped out of it and landed on the dust. A small circle of it around him flew up before falling right back down at the same speed.

The driver turned around and took a few steps back, looking at the vehicle he had stolen from one of his - now dead - friends. 

Well… classmates. 

He didn’t know him enough to remember how he looked right now, but it felt a bit bad not to remember his legacy… but he just could not. 

He kicked his leg forward, making a tiny pebble hit the ground multiple times before jumping under the truck and hitting the metal a couple of times.

The sky above him was somewhat comforting; looking up at it, Vance could see three purple moons somewhat close but far from each other. 

All of them were shattered, and made the sky slightly darker than the nebula would allow. They didn’t seem to move too much, maybe at all. 

That fact alone made him confused. It didn’t seem like something that could happen. He didn’t deny the fact that they might be missing a crucial detail - a massive piece of the puzzle - but whatever that was… it wouldn’t make the three of them weird.

They probably have more of a goal than we do, Vance thought, walking up to the vehicle and putting his back against one of its sides. 

The cold metal of someone’s stolen truck was brushing up against his stiff fingers. They were not a lot warmer than the metal, but still enough to make him flinch a little when he had put both of them against it. He huffed, forcing a gust of ash to change their direction for less than three seconds. 

His eyes focused on the ground below him. The layer of these strange particles seemed to never gather up on the floor…

“Hey,” A voice suddenly whispered behind him, “What are you doing Vance?” 

Vance jumped the other way, quickly looking towards the direction of the voice to see Mikhael staring at him from the front seat he was sitting on moments ago. 

The younger artist jumped out - his landing a lot better than Vance’s - and walked towards him. He leant on the car, almost perfectly copying Vance’s pose before he got scared by his friend. Vance returned to his calmed state, now with a barely awake friend next to him.

“Just thinking,” He replied once the silence was already beginning to come back. 

Mikhael’s eyes darted towards his face, interested in his hidden thoughts. Vance gently turned away from him, not really in the mood to test Mikhael’s mind reading abilities he didn’t have. Some would call that empathy. 

“About everything. Even if we have been here for a week or two now, whatever that time frame is, I am still coming to terms with everything. It is still all settling in.” He added in…

“I think all of us are, Vance.” Mikhael stepped in and responded. 

He turned down at the barren floor, the dust landing on his greasy hair he was still getting used to, “I am still kind of numb to all of this… maybe I would have reacted better and been more excited about an alien world… whatever this is if I knew that there was a way back.” 

Vance nodded, he was already preparing a question but Mikhael continued, “At the party, I was reflecting for a bit and realised that my life was just getting better than ever before. I had a hobby, a path I set for myself, friends that would talk and care for me. Then everything just… shattered and now we are here. Everything that I had, things I would have never thought I would lose forever, are now gone.”

“Do you think there is a way back?” Vance questioned, stopping this monologue Mikhael would devolve into. 

His friend didn’t reply for a second, then for two, then for a minute. Vance sighed and began staring at the empty world that he could see. The sky kept falling down onto their heads and the ones sleeping soundly behind them. Suddenly though, the graffiti boy responded.

“Maybe,” Mikhael said in a strained voice, as if a rope was barely clinging towards the thing it was holding onto. “Nothing has made sense yet, even if there might be some logic behind it. We do not know it. That means that the possibilities are infinite, and one of them could lead us back to where the world was before… this.” 

He took a deep breath, his voice warming up again, “That maybe is probably just… something that I am holding onto to return one day. Maybe we never will. I doubt we will survive till that happens.”

“I think that we should still enjoy what we have, shouldn’t we?” Vance whispered, “We are lucky Mikhael, you clearly saw it with the shopping mall. We have a magical stone that can literally solve all of our problems, maybe not like food and water, but most of our other problems! Shouldn’t we try to do something… more?!” 

Mikhael’s eyes widened, not really willing to accept his friend’s words.

“I am not saying that we shouldn’t enjoy what we have… I am saying that it is kind of futile.” Mikhael stated, “It doesn’t really feel like all of this matters Vance. No matter what we do, we won't stay alive here forever. This world, whatever has happened to it, whatever it was and it is, is already dead and more barren than a fucking desert!” 

He bounced from the vehicle, staring right at Vance. His eyes were red and wet. “It doesn’t matter when we will die and what we will do, since everything is fucking gone!” 

He kicked the stones and made them fly into the distance. Vance stepped close to him, and looked at the desperation creeping out of his friend’s head.

“We have a chance to do something,” He said calmly, trying to deescalate the situation, “We have some of the resources needed to stay alive somewhat long… Maybe - after finding the next person - we will be able to go to a place that is safe for us. We can start saving people that might know a bit more than us about… making food and something edible. Start some kind of town here.”

“It sounds a lot easier than it probably is,” Mikhael looked down, cleaning up the tears that had gathered in his eyes. 

“Do you think a place like that actually exists here?” He asked, pointing at the emptiness they had been driving through for what felt like aeons.

“I am sure,” Vance reassured him, not thinking if these words held any truth to him, “You said there was an infinite amount of possibilities, didn’t you?”

~~~

Polly and Adra were sitting at the back of the vehicle. Their greasy hair was flying in the air, somehow still not thick enough that it stuck to itself like a giant sponge or a block of concrete. Aubrey, Kel and Mikhael were playing UNO, making some less calming ambiance than the mini-truck itself. 

The world around them moved in the opposite direction, while they sat down in static. Adra put her hand up and flipped it over, grabbing some of the dust before flinging it back into the wild.

Polly still felt… very disoriented. Her mind was conflicted, and cleaning itself up. The last moments in that mall before everything had happened, were now just a giant blurred memory somewhere in the emptier world of Polly’s mind. 

She didn’t want to think about it, not now, not ever. Adra was… weird. She did feel kind of scared to be next to her, as with the rest of the people here, but memories she made with her were the most vivid, the strongest.

The sound of them going over another hole reminded her of concrete crashing down, the world shaking and crying in desperation. Everyone was screaming and trying to run away while the building turned and twisted. 

She saw children die while crying, holding hands of their dead parents before being taken away by random strangers. She didn’t manage to escape, the horrors weren’t ones she had time or energy to process, she would never process them.

The red smell of blood tingling her nose, smiling and laughing at her. It wasn’t weaker while diluted with water, the red liquid of something that was once a human remained on the concrete floors. Then the overwhelming world of corpses and the bats came, something no one was ever prepared for. 

She clung onto the hope that someone will save her, and luckily she did… but she thought about not wanting to see it all. There was no one to help or smile back at her while the woman hid away.

Suddenly, someone took her out of her foggy world and asked her a question.

“Are you alright?” Adra asked quietly, looking at her face. 

She must have noticed her drifting into the realm of endless looping thoughts. They never ended and spun around like a dancer in a whirlpool of air and light. Polly realised that she was in the same place as before, at least it looked at it. She couldn’t really tell where they were driving honestly. 

It kind of gave her paranoia that everywhere they rode, it looked like the same place. Only occasionally Kel would spot something outside the car and grab it inside. The last thing he had found were a pair of scissors on the ground.

“Yeah-,” She stammered out as fast as possible, realising how on the edge and nervous she sounded. 

Probably not the best look, Polly thought, looking at Adra and how stoic she was. 

Adra’s face was always… difficult to read. But never to this degree. Her eyes seemed completely empty, and her face still, as if someone had frozen it in ice. There were no tiny smiles or subtle reactions to everything around her. Adra was gone, a husk of herself.

That was to be expected after everything that has happened… they hadn’t seen each other in years, maybe decades even. Making these interactions even more awkward and bittersweet. It isn’t like she could leave this mini-truck. 

Aubrey and Kel would drag her back in, and even if she did escape, what would she do? Die and rot like the others in that mall? She could have just done that before they got to her, which she didn’t. Why would she give up on life only now? She was more safe than she ever was and yet she still felt like this wouldn’t be enough for them.

“Trying to remember the past,” Polly finally muttered out. 

She closed her eyes, not to look at Adra or anything else. She just wanted to stay in her empty and blurry mind of memories for a while. Maybe it would hurt, but when it did, she would open her eyes again to see that nothing had changed. 

The sounds of Adra’s response, the wheels kicking dust and pebbles far into the void, and the teens playing in the background. The world around her - bit by bit - turned to a single limitless black surface.

“HEY!” Vance screamed very loudly, waking her up from the quick reflection she wanted to calmly do. His voice was louder than she had ever heard before, “WE FOUND SOMETHING!”

~~~

The six left the mini-truck, a giant wall standing right in front of them. It looked like it was around twenty metres tall. Its grey colour was the same as the ground, and the texture was as rough and unpolished as a crumpled piece of paper. 

Dust was clinging onto its tiny sides, before falling off of the tiny spikes in the terrain. The place looked like a mountain, or an edge of the world. It seemed to span further than they could see.

Kel - feeling dust settle on his hair before he eventually brushed it off - looked down at the rainbow compass. The faint rainbow glow of the needle was pointing forward, not even moving left and right when he walked around in random directions. 

The wall looked intimidating and lifeless, more devoid of life than anything they had even seen before.

Aubrey just stood there, frozen next to Adra and Mikhael. An aura of something dangerous making them shiver. The ash continued to fall down onto them and the ground, not changing, static. 

The sky seemed a lot more empty now, with the wall covering most of it. Its black and overwhelming solid colour was covered by a dark grey, something that was a lot more eye-catching, even if it lacked any hue.

“It looks like we are at a roadblock,” Kel stated, trying to change the direction of the compass. 

It wasn’t working. 

Mikhael walked up to the wall and kicked it a little… he probably just now realised it was rock. Vance was touching the wall with his hand, its texture a lot more spiky than he would have expected some weird terrain like this to come by. Adra and Polly were blocks of ice while Aubrey walked up to him.

“No shit,” She shouted before grabbing his arm with the compass. “Can’t you ask it for a pickaxe or something?” 

Kel looked at her and backed off slightly, worried she might take his most prized possession again and do something dumb. He whispered to it quietly, not letting anyone hear his prompt. The compass turned into a pretty large red and purple drill in a matter of seconds.

Kel approached the wall and sighed, before turning it on with one of the buttons in front of him and starting to mine out into rock. It was… slower than he had expected. The stones and pebbles he was going through didn’t hit him, but the ash that would be falling from the sky was somehow gathering around him. 

He began to cough as more and more of the ash fell onto him and his body. The drill itself was also not the quietest thing in the world, alerting everyone that he was mining.

After everything became too much, and his breathing became erratic, feeling some gooey substance on the floor covering his shoes, Kel jumped out of the tiny hole he had created. He was covered in the dust, and it didn’t take him a nanosecond to figure that out. Everyone was staring at him, as he shook to get rid of the falling ash. 

Kel turned around to see that what he had dug out was literally nothing compared to the height of the giant stone wall.

“This doesn’t seem helpful,” Kel heard Vance speak his own thoughts, “I have another idea. We could go-”

Kel didn’t listen to him, instead leaping forward towards the hole he had dug, stepping on the black sticky liquid below, and mining again. He could hear shouting and someone telling him to stop. The compass was pointing this way, to another friend they could save… they couldn’t go another way, not now. 

He pointed the drill up, smashing and cracking another set of pebbles that released a giant cloud of these particles. The goop was flowing down from the hole, its smell as horrendous as the blood of weird alien creatures.

He pushed onwards, facing the other way with closed eyes and stepping forward to feel the unstable ground beneath him fall backwards into the sticky substance that was now forming on the new floor he had created. He felt his energy drain from him, the rainbow drill spinning faster and faster. 

And suddenly, he couldn’t hear sounds of rocks getting pierced. He opened his eyes after brushing the dust off them and saw that there was a large empty hole inside the wall… a tunnel. It seemed to be quite empty and large on the inside, the dust was somehow still falling in it even if it was completely sealed from the top with the rock.

“KEL?!” A pink haired girl pulled him down from the tiny tunnel he had dug. 

The sports player didn’t lose his balance, but couldn’t really risk getting thrown down by his friend. He tightly held onto the drill and hopped down with her. She looked in complete shock and as if she was going to explode at this moment. The rest of the group were watching, as scared as Kel was.

“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!” Aubrey roared at him, pointing at the drill and almost grabbing it away from him. 

Kel, remembering the empty hole he had found from earlier, felt a bit of determination fuel his actions. Someone was waiting for them, for their help and for his safety. For the safety of the Rainbow Rock. They had to continue, they couldn’t stop and turn away.

“What do you mean?” Kel asked, more calmly, trying to settle the dust before it turned into a raging fire. “Trying to get to the other side of the wall?!” 

He felt someone holding his shoulder with a very tight grip. He jumped forward, pulling himself away, almost falling down face-down onto the ground. Kel jumped back and dug a bigger entrance to the hole he had found. It was giant. 

The tunnel was weirdly round with tiny holes all over the place, and the radius of the entire thing would probably fit three to four mini-trucks they had.

“KEL STOP!” Aubrey shouted through the dust that was spraying out of the drill, Mikhael was screaming something in the background. 

He turned off the machine, asked it to become a flashlight and took one more step, stepping into the cave for the first time. It was dark and eerie, a foul smell lingering as more dust fell onto him. He didn’t know if the smell came out of the liquid that had formed due to his mining or if it was the inside of the caves he had discovered. 

The boy could hear gruelling and frustrated sounds of someone coming up while pebbles fell down to the floor. A couple other pairs of footsteps followed.

“What in the actual hell are you doing?!” Aubrey questioned again, a bit more tired and calmer as a result, “We have to turn back, not walk in some weird tunnels in this giant fuckin’ wall.” Mikhael’s huffing and Adra’s groaning could be heard in the background.

“I thought our mission was to save people?” Kel retorted, simultaneously turning the drill into a flashlight without even asking it to. “I thought all of us were on board?”

“I- I am…” Aubrey stuttered, “But isn’t what we have already enough…? Vance already had an-”

“No! It isn’t Aubrey!” Kel didn’t wait for her to finish her answer, he felt nausea hit him like a truck, as he had realised how much energy the mining had required. “We still have Hero and Sally and Kim and everyone to find and save! We do not know if they are dying at this moment right now!” Both of them felt their eyes beginning to water.

“And what will we do after we find and save them?!” Aubrey shouted back, “We barely have enough food for all of us, we haven’t showered for weeks, we are already barely living here! We can’t help others if we die right now! We have to find a place where we can settle down and help them later on!”

“You said yourself Aubrey! They are in a far worse situation and-” Kel tried to turn her to her side, it wasn’t working. 

The dust was dancing around them, making them even colourless than they were before. Mikhael and Adra were listening to the entire conversation from the back, not willing to intervene. It made Adra feel a lot more alien once again.

“Kel you can’t just overwork yourself for nothing! You are barely standing upright right now!” Aubrey pointed out, he looked like a pale corpse. “We are worthless if we die trying to save and help people we can’t even feed for more than a week or two.”

“You say that because you don’t have family!” Kel roared back, furious at the fact that she was right. 

Even with something that allowed him to do all sorts of things, it would not give them the thing that mattered the most to their health and stability. The ash that was falling down seemed calmer than Kel himself. The rainbow light reflecting itself from the walls of the seemingly endless tunnel they were standing in. 

Aubrey looked down at the floor. She could see her tears that she was trying to stop these days.. Flow down onto the ground. It seemed to flow into the holes. 

Adra noticed that the grey dust was dodging or even destroying itself once it touched the liquid. 

“Do you think that I have felt any kind of safety?! Mom, Dad, SALLY AND HERO COULD BE DEAD! And I am here playing board games with my friends and a rainbow crystal that could have helped them stay alive! Instead, luck picked us! And what am I supposed to do now?! Go and forget that everyone we know is DYING?!” He continued shouting ruthlessly.

“W- would you allow your family to hurt themselves constantly for something that isn’t worth it… Kel?” Aubrey sounded- broken. 

“I let one friend that I considered family die in front of my eyes,” Adra closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Kel felt a small water drop fall from his eyes to his mouth. Mikhael, not knowing anything but remembering who Aubrey was months before, tried to smile. 

“I guess without him we aren’t really family… huh….” Her tone changed from sad to determined in one short sentence, as she stressed the words one by one. Kel stood frozen, he felt his weakened body slowly give up on him. He stumbled towards one of the walls, feeling more tired than ever before. 

Aubrey began walking towards the exit, Kel dug through, others were ready to follow her.

“Can we just…” He started, taking everyone’s attention away from the way out, “See where this cave goes, for my sake.” 

Aubrey rolled her tired eyes and let a long exhale escape.

“Sure,” She achingly agreed, biting her own lips very hard so that she didn’t have to punch herself in the face, “Maybe if someone dies you will finally stop.”

~~~

The tunnel was not getting bigger or smaller, staying at a similar size all the time. The floor was made out of thousands of holes and larger stones that were on the ground, some of them covering the larger holes that would have been tunnels of their own. The tiny spikes sometimes grew out into larger ones, if wind had existed these things would have fallen down instantly. The ash was falling down from the rock and then disappearing into the ground.

Kel was moving his rainbow flashlight around, going deeper and deeper with his friends following behind him. Adra and Mikhael were silent since they had entered this place, while Aubrey copied them and decided to inspect the rocks and the unnerving air in this cave. The horrid smell was in fact getting stronger and weaker at random times, Kel didn’t see any correlation between those things, and so he moved on without mentioning it.

Their footsteps echoed through the tunnel more than their breathing, as it was getting more and more difficult to breathe. She could already hear herself huffing, or maybe it was because of that spat. She still didn’t believe that Kel… 

Aubrey turned her head to see him, realising that he wasn’t even looking at her. He’s probably ashamed, She thought, walking next to Mikhael and Adra.

The tunnel was honestly very boring. It was going down, then up, then left and after that right. She didn’t expect this wall to be this thick, or this mountain or whatever she could call this phenomenon. It interested her a bit why and how a giant wall could be built here. 

The barren wasteland wasn’t filled with humans or anything, and the mostly flatlands they had been driving through weren’t even close to something this scale. It was shocking to see that this place could be something different. The mountain was very unnatural. As if it had been cut and glued onto the ground from another place.

Another movement of the rainbow flashlight revealed a couple of tunnels meeting in a single place. They were as boring as the hole they had been walking through. 

And it seemed that this place was completely empty. The foul and somewhat familiar smell made them know that something else was going on here. It was not as horrible as the mall, but it could be right next to it in the ranking.

“Should we go left?” Kel asked, his scared voice echoing through the veins of the place. 

This place was more grim and dark than anything he had seen before. He had never been in an endless net of caves and tunnels interconnecting. He hoped that the flashlight was actually remembering the way back. The whole group stood in the middle of the intersection, spinning around and looking if there was something of value in these depths.

“Maybe we should go back?” Mikhael replied with a question, not willing to explore this place even more. 

The holes looked too man-made… as if someone had dug out almost perfect cylinders and carved them out around with years and years of work. The rough shapes and inconsistencies in the walls made him frustrated even more. He thought he would be accustomed to closed off places, as they were the best - and safest - places to graffiti… he was very very wrong. Or maybe it was this place specifically that instilled this fear in him. 

“There is nothing interesting here.” He whispered again…

“We aren’t going up anyways,” Aubrey stated, already turning back. 

The silent woman in the background didn’t say anything, she waited for an outcome to be decided before making a choice… after all she was just here to spectate… kind of. Adra didn’t really know what she was doing here exactly. 

She could have easily stayed with Polly and Vance to do something in the car. Maybe she was just used to going with them on these adventures, or that she wanted to keep them safe from everything… even though she was just a weight.

Kel didn’t listen, in fact he went towards one of the other tunnels, he shone his flashlight into the giant hole. 

Stalactites hung from the ceiling, pointing down towards the rough floor full of tiny holes that went endlessly down. The spikes from above were going downwards, the tunnel going the same direction. He walked up towards the gradual descending walkway. 

The rest didn’t follow behind him, as the lack of footsteps alerted him. The basketball player turned around to see the other three waiting for Kel.

“Guys! Just one more tunnel!” Kel shouted, his loud tone bouncing off the seemingly endless amount of walls. “We will get out soon, I just have to find a way to the-”

“Kel,” Aubrey stopped him, she took a deep breath, not ready to tell him the same thing over and over again.

 She put one foot forward, wanting to go to him and take away the only thing that could lead them out of here, as she personally had lost track of which tunnel was the one they took. Luckily, she didn’t have to do anything.

“This is hopeless,” Adra said calmly, breaking away her silence, deciding to do something, to change the outcome. “As Aubrey had said beforehand, we have to go back.”

“Why are you guys ganging up on me?!” He responded loudly.

“That is not what I meant!” Adra lost her coldness, an emotion brightening her up. “We can’t keep going like this!”

“I do NOT want to lose MY FAMILY!” Kel finally confessed, his pent up emotions let go of their strings. The stalactites vibrated as his voice made a shockwave around the area. “YOU UNDERSTAND THAT, RIGHT? I THOUGHT U DID?”

Upon hearing those words, Adra fell into the deepest part of her own ocean once again. 

The pictures of Mari circled around - teasing her of what she once had. Memories of the happier past made wind and waves strengthen, dropping her further down into the whirlpool of bad thoughts. She felt as if she was losing her breath, drowning in the water that fueled her nightmare. 

Movie-like strings of photographs and emotions flew past her, showing Sunny and how she had hurt his own son. How she abandoned and left him due to her own personal problems she didn’t bother to fix. How she kept her son a secret from his own father to vaguely protect him. 

All of those memories, burning the boat she was clung onto, somehow burning up and joining the water around her. A mixture of both events, of her hanging daughter, of her bloody son, of her love that couldn’t handle all of this stress. Everything felt as if it was attacking her. 

She couldn’t feel her tears, she couldn’t see their graves. She couldn’t imagine their bodies burned up next to her as she drowned and drowned and got sucked in more and more.

“What happened to the bright basketball player that I called my rival?!” She suddenly heard someone shout in the distance - far away from the consciousness of her ocean. 

The waves were pulling her down and down, letting her drown and lose everything once again. She felt the rocks at the bottom hit her, the sandy pebbles at the bottom ready to consume her underwater corpse.

Not now, She begged, trying to swim up. 

She tried to take a deep breath… and it somewhat worked. She felt the waves calm down, the water losing its speed that it had gathered up. Her arms and legs felt a bit stronger, while she tried and succeeded to swim upwards. There was no light she could see above, there was only darkness. 

But this darkness was enough to live, not to survive, but to feel her lungs and heart move once again for the billionth time. Suddenly, the weight of water stopped surrounding her.

She opened her eyes to see a blurry image of the teens fighting. She couldn’t hear their incomprehensible screams, as someone was already screaming inside of her. She touched the ground, her hands wet and devoid of the dust. She couldn’t feel the rock, she couldn’t stabilise. Another wave was approaching her, about to throw her back into the endless ocean of her mind. She couldn’t.

Adra turned around, a faint yellow-ish colour of an eye was looking at them. Flying in the sky, hidden. She quickly realised what it was, the smell of these creatures hit her nostrils, realising that this place was not safe. She tried to stand up, but her legs continued to shake. 

Her head was flooded, screaming was everywhere, echoing. The broken woman slowly approached the chaos that had ensued. They noticed her, and said something. Something she wasn’t able to hear. The screaming slowly dissipated, while the glow of the shining compass gave her some hope. She felt her breathing slowly stabilising. Out of the ocean - for now. She still felt weak, as the three teens focused on their useless weight.

And then, screaming. She saw the three fling themselves back as something had attacked. The rainbow rock dropped mid-air by its user. The woman quickly shot herself up, trying to catch it. Somehow, she was successful… Time had seemed to slow down, everything happening a lot slower than expected. 

Not fully knowing what was happening, the rainbow tool turned itself into a large red and blue boxing glove with very sharp spikes. It formed itself around her hand as she flipped her body over to see the eye opening itself into a monster with sharp teeth attached to tentacles coming at her. She punched it as hard as she could, before getting caught by someone from the back. 

The monster wheezed and roared back, getting knocked back multiple times into walls and dying. Its murky blood exploding everywhere.

“We have to run,” Mikhael huffed, still shocked by what he had just seen. 

Sadly, for them, the tunnel they went through was echoing multiple wings flapping constantly and without any time to stop. Adra felt her eyes gradually regain their focus. She felt empowered by the glove she held in her hand. Kel was already beginning to run down into the tunnel - Mikhael getting ready to do the same. 

Aubrey was the only one that waited, and so Adra smiled, knowing that she maybe had the power to help. They began sprinting towards their friends, wanting to meet up at the next intersection as fast as possible.

~~~

Vance and Polly were relaxing in the car. 

The four had left them alone about ten minutes ago, and it probably wouldn’t be long till they came back. Vance was sitting in the front seat - ready to turn on the mini-truck and drive away as far as they could before running out of fuel. They had been to three gas stations already, so they had maybe a day or two of driving stored up already, including the fact that the second day would be stressful as they didn’t know how far the closest gas station was.

Polly was doing something at the back of the car, he didn’t quite know what, and he wasn’t really that interested in starting up a conversation. 

She didn’t seem mentally well enough to talk to… probably the fact that she was inside the mall while everything broke down. Or maybe something completely else he didn’t know about her… the only thing he knew was that she was Basil’s caretaker. The driver thought that she would probably be a bit… brighter. He leaned into his seat more, relaxing himself a bit.

How mentally well are all of us…? Vance thought, realising that his reason for talking with Polly was just his laziness, and also the potential awkwardness. 

The thought bounced around as he tried to rest for a little, before Mikhael came back and became his daily 24/7 podcast about random things he didn’t care about anymore. At least it was nice to have someone talk.

The first person he thought of was Mikhael, his mental state was not something he had been interested in questioning until now. He seemed mostly fine on the outside, he hadn’t been doing any art since naming the car. And his last outburst when they talked one on one did show a different side of him he had never seen before. 

His friend was right though, Mikhael had been working to change his image and continue his hobbies. His parents had finally let him use art as an expression for his emotions… and now all of that was completely gone. Any progress he had done, any plan he had made, were all dropped because of a random storm.

The second person was Kel. He didn’t know why he thought Kel was alright, as he seemed a lot more focused on continuing the crystal than anything else. Well, the others didn’t really have a direction either, and so trying to see their friends for one last time before they starved to death seemed like the best outcome. But was it really? 

Their conversation made him realise that they may be capable of so much more than just their close ones… If they were still alive… 

He then spoke to Aubrey - and Adra at the same time as she seemed to be able to eavesdrop everyone - and she agreed to his sentiment. Kel seemed a lot more determined and mature than ever before… and yet Vance felt like he didn’t… that was not Kel.

The third one his mind bounced to was Aubrey. Another friend. She seemed even more depressed than after that one boy had died. That event already shook her to her core, and this served as a surprise second meal in a restaurant full of pain and misery. She seemed to have her moments, but her feelings were clearly hidden beneath a wall no one could break… well except that one person that had jumped and died. That is what Kim told him after all.

Kim… she was with Hero when the storm happened… she will be fine…, Vance thought, before returning to his analysis; trying to get away from memories.

The next person would have been Polly, but he already constructed his lack of any idea who she was already, and so Adra was left. Adra was also a mystery to Vance, but as she had spent a lot of time with them already, he knew a bit about her. She was a good card game player, always having the luck and probably the skill to win anything she could. She was also devoid of any emotions most of the time. 

She giggled and smiled sometimes during their games - at least from what Mikhael was saying - but that was about it. Sometimes she randomly decides to stare at the emptiness and stay frozen like that for hours. He couldn’t decipher her, even if he wanted to.

And then, he had realised that there was one person left. He. Was he mentally well? He didn’t really think about that too much. Maybe because he was scared to realise that all of this is so much more grim and dark than he wanted to think. He was just the driver, the person that held the steering wheel and drove everyone from point A to point B. 

He looked forward, to see a giant wall of dust on his window. He quickly got rid of them with one button press, revealing the grey skyscraper in front of them. He closed his eyes again, waiting to wander off onto a happier and more reasonable thought… not willing to answer his final question.

Sitting in a bubble was much more comfortable after all… at least right now… He had to be the anchor of the group, someone had to do it. And if it had landed on him, which it did, he had no choice but to accept this fate until everything gets better… if it ever does…

<~~~>

Entry 39 - Hello, this is Prin writing here. I have invited the boy to my lab today, wanting to understand what mistake we made. And well, I discovered two things. First, the less weird one, the boy got mad at us for showing him Feloids and calling them… slaves. I am still thinking about that, and why Ceropia - a feloid - is keeping his kind enslaved. I am too scared to ask him. The second thing is a lot more interesting.

The boy is different.

He has magical powers as well.

Chapter Text

Entry 40 - Hello, this is Prin writing here. I have to keep him away from Ceropia as much as possible. Ceropia can’t know that humans are also capable of possessing Gem powers. This discovery changes everything we knew about our kind. It seems like this boy right here somehow possesses a Gem power that is not known to us. Maybe a new connection of Gems? Maybe a new special Gem? I do not know, but what I know is that every day here is becoming less safe for him here. I have to think of something.

<~~~>

Kel felt his legs throb and pulse, he had never sprinted so far and so quickly in his life for this long. Everything was happening too fast for him to comprehend. First the fighting, then an eye flew, then the crystal… Kel quickly tried to find the rainbow light, noticing that he was only guiding himself by where he saw the dust fall in front of him.

He didn’t have the rainbow crystal in hand. 

His hands were tired, his senses were completely overwhelmed. 

The fact that this place was full of these monsters probably should have been expected, the smell of their blood was around this entire cave system. It was surprising he hadn’t recognised this before - he was too focused on their mission.

Their mission, or his mission? 

It was insensitive and what he said to Adra was completely wrong, but that is how he had been feeling. He wanted to know if Sally and the rest of the family were alive.

 He asked the crystal to even check up on them, and yet it continued to constantly change forms for ages. 

For some reason it couldn’t track if they were alive or not, even if it could show the closest person…

Does that mean that it didn’t know if the person was dead or alive by the time they came there?

Was all of this just luck? The basketball player asked himself in the empty darkness. 

There were no other sounds than his footsteps, the tiny rocks bouncing around once they were accidentally kicked, and went back into the invisible places of this giant maze. 

He could hear his heavy pants and breaths, as he stood frozen in the middle of the cave. He didn’t know if this was an intersection, but he was too tired to continue running.

Does any of this matter? Kel asked himself, not willing to answer his previous question. 

He fell down on the floor, his tired limbs not able to carry the rest of his body… the weight that he had put on himself. They were right, all of this was just a suicide mission to save people that may be not even alive. They barely had enough food, the only things keeping them sane were… nothing… themselves… were they even sane… 

Would it be more painful to die with his family knowing that he is dying, or without them knowing? Maybe the fact that the Rainbow Rock was not showing him this information was good for him? Should he move on? From… no he couldn’t.

There was still no light around, did he lose all of his friends? There was only one tunnel and only one way to go, or did he miss a way that he hadn’t noticed. He didn’t have the crystal, he was useless without it. Everything he has done was with the tool in question, and now that he lost it, he felt completely powerless. 

The darkness around him seemed to get closer and closer, like something closing in. 

He lost everyone; his family, his friends, his best friend… 

Was he even worth anything if he couldn’t help by himself?

“KEL!” A familiar shout bounced around the sponge-like walls before the basketball player recognised the jaded artist heading straight towards him. 

His dark purple hoodie and dark blue jeans didn’t seem to help him become more visible. He could hear his frantic and short puffing, his quick approaching footsteps, his hands moving up and down.

“KEL!” Mikhael shouted again, seeing the tall basketball player in his orange shirt from afar. 

The artist felt like his body was about to collapse and never be able to stand back up again. He didn’t know why he hadn’t stopped, but the sight of the opening flying eye made him more scared than anything beforehand. The fact that this monster was barely stopped by… who had even hit it back?

Mikhael suddenly felt someone grab him, stopping his run. Kel’s hand had stopped him by holding his shirt to a full stop. His lack of any energy and sweat was now more visible than while he was running. Everything felt like one giant grey blur, as he tried to balance himself and landed on the ash filled floor shortly after. 

Everything had happened too quickly for him to register every sound and every move he had made in the past couple of… minutes? Seconds?

Kel had sat down next to Mikhael, feeling a bit safer with someone… even if it had to be Mikhael. 

He had nothing against him, but he would have rather spent it with Aubrey and… his family? 

He didn’t seem to talk to Adra a lot, or Polly, or Vance, or anyone except Aubrey. 

Had he disregarded everyone else so much as just people? Just?  

They were the only ones that he had seen breathing and living since their fates were changed, and now he had reduced them to words and not real interactions? The fact that he wasn’t fully willing to talk to Mikhael… made him realise how different he felt.

Is this me? Kel thought, looking at his dust-filled hands and shaking a little, only enough for it not to be visible to anyone else. 

He wasn’t the person that had landed here and found the Gem, was he? Who was he? He had felt so overwhelmed by trying to save others that he…

Mikhael meanwhile watched him have this breakdown, something that Kel completely failed to see.

He remembered the fights, the mall, the monsters. The old house that they left, the tree that had almost killed both of them during that one last night. 

Had that changed him and he… didn’t notice? How couldn’t he notice this? 

They spent time playing games together and looking for things amidst the sea of blank nothingness, but that felt like… nothing.

Only things to stop himself from seeing how wrong everything has become, how wrong he was in trying to save people he couldn’t help.

He barely had helped Polly, someone that he didn’t even speak to, he just took her out of that miserable place to basically live with her in another miserable place.

He didn’t even bother to look at her face, to try to see what she was living. He had been living in complete ignorance of everyone and everything just so that he could try to smile and feel like he was on a “mission”. 

This was their lives on the line, they could die, stop breathing and looking at this already dead world.

“You okay?” A voice disturbed his ongoing train of thoughts, Kel turned his head to see Mikhael sit next to him, he seemed a lot pale and relaxed than him. “You spaced out…, thinking about everything?” 

Kel sighed, silently agreeing. Particles bounced off of their breaths, silently and perfectly. They had one job to balance, and they did it perfectly, were these things - smaller than grains of sand - better than him?

“I feel like… shit,” Kel responded louder, Mikhael hummed, telling him to continue, “Not only about… what I said to Adra. About everything really.” His voice echoed throughout the cave, throwing off more and more dust in somewhat random directions. Mikhael looked at him, before standing up and squatting in front of the basketball player.

“Well, you saved us,” Mikhael answered, Kel opened his eyes very wide, “Your… mission is something that was questioned since the beginning, by Vance obviously… he didn’t show it obviously that much but he wasn’t too on board since the beginning. Saving people isn’t a bad idea, especially with that magical rock but… I do not want to live in a car the rest of my life, Kel. I really care about your family, but shouldn’t we put ourselves in front of others now?”

“Doesn’t that make us monsters?” Kel quickly retorts, his conflicted mind trying to decide if there is a side he should pick, “By prioritising ourselves we leave others to di-”

“We barely fit inside that mini-truck already, and we have been living in it for what has felt like months now,” Mikhael added in, stopping Kel’s retort, “And… we have prioritised our friends over others. You didn’t ask to save people, you asked to save the ones close to us… Something I understand and agree with but… don’t take it too badly but I think we have no other choice. We have to let go… both of us.” 

Kel sighed again, this one was distorted more than the others, full of something he had been feeling so much lately, worry. The fact that Mikhael was talking to him in this… more mature way he hadn’t seen and noticed beforehand…

Silence ensued for a moment. Mikhael patiently waiting for a response, Kel standing in between two choices. It was already clear to him which one was the one that would make all of them - even him - happier. The question changed from is it a good choice to… if he wanted to leave it behind? 

Was there a reason to continue this mission of his… his futile attempt at saving the people he loves?

“Once we find a way back,” Kel broke the silence as suddenly as Mikhael had appeared minutes ago, it was louder than the quiet sounds of two pairs of footsteps approaching him. Sadly for Kel, Mikhael was the only one that could see the rainbow lights coming from forward and above. “We will try to find a place to stay, I promise.”

“WOooo!” A tired shout rang out of the other direction as Kel stood up and saw rainbow lights shining towards them. They saw Aubrey and Adra running towards them. 

Aubrey was holding a boxing glove that was emanating the familiar light show while the woman barely stayed behind her. They were both sweating and huffing louder than the sounds of them almost jumping from one leg to another. 

“Now-” Aubrey tried to say but her throat and the need for air disagreed, she inhaled more of the dust than she probably wished to, she choked on it before coughing it out and falling on her knees to the rocky ground. 

A hiss escaped her mouth as the floor was not the smoothest surface. Adra - compared to Aubrey - held herself up by leaning against the wall. She gave the glove to Kel, who quickly turned it into the flashlight/compass. It felt nice to hold its light, cold and smooth surface again in his hand.

“Find the safest way back to Vance,” he commanded it, the compass needle lit up and began turning around frantically, searching for a way that could guarantee their safety… as much as it was possible. 

It didn’t take long for it to finally stop and point towards further into the tunnel. With everyone ready, as much as they could be after such a long run, they descended once again into the depths of this cursed wall… mountain… whatever it was.

~~~

“This feels like a very roundabout way,” Aubrey commented while they turned right again before beginning to walk up one more time. 

They were speed walking at the moment, realising the lack of any danger around them. Every hole they went through, every turn they made, felt the exact same. Even if they had no reasons not to believe in the capabilities of the Crystal Compass they held onto.

“Safer than going into that cloud of eyes,” Kel added, going in front with his light. 

Flashing every surface possible with his rainbow glow that he controlled. The smell of the air that would never stop floating around them suddenly got stronger, as if its source was closeby. Adra closed her nose with her fingers, deciding that their pace allowed her to breath without smelling the hideous background. Others followed suit, the woman smiled.

The compass turned 90 degrees and pointed towards the right left this time, Kel shone his flashlight towards that direction, seeing another empty - and slightly smaller - tunnel to the left. They swiftly changed their direction, it was continuing to go up. Walking up was severely harder and more energy consuming than walking down… or sitting down in a car that drove itself. Mikhael groaned, standing in between Adra and Aubrey.

“I wish we went down more,” He said, rolling his eyes and moving slightly faster than Adra so that she wouldn’t have to stop walking. 

The tunnel they were walking through was a bit… weird. 

The walls and floor had less holes inside of them, causing less dust to fall down onto them. The tunnel itself was a bit smaller, not as large to fit all of them standing next to each other. The smell was getting worse and worse with every step. Everything seemed to be going fine, until the sounds of their footsteps and breaths were not alone.

An ambient and almost constant sound of something cracking and eating had echoed to their ears. The scratching and cracking was not stopping, as its suddenness made them jump and shiver a little. The sound was high pitched, as if claws sharper than the biggest kitchen knife scratching the stone they were walking on and next to. Their movements became slower, as the compass needle continued to shine brighter and brighter.

“Are we sure this is the way?” Aubrey asked as Kel lit up the surrounding area, trying to see the tunnel the compass would point towards so that they could get as far as possible from this string of sounds. 

There were none. 

Kel hummed a response, not willing to raise his voice any louder so close to this monster. Its scratching sounds were now accompanying the very quiet sounds of something being eaten, chewed on. Adra began to look back, seeing if running back was something they could do in case of emergency. 

Mikhael shivered, trying not to think about how dangerous this was.

And then, Kel saw it. 

A giant blackish-greyish moving sponge sticking to the right wall. It was moving like waves of an ocean, its sponge body going left and right. 

There were a lot of tiny black bubbles going off of some of its bigger holes, they weren’t transparent, and the liquid they were made out of was not only sticky and the bubbles had gathered up in a bundle before all of them popped, making a tiny explosion of dust - that was inside of them - and the liquid itself. The spongy creature also had very tiny singular claws that were spinning around and moving inside and outside of the body. A lot of the liquid was flowing down onto the ground and into some of the holes below. The sounds were coming from this one creature.

“What is this shit again?!” Aubrey tried not to shout out, yet her words had echoed quite loudly through the tinier tunnels of this maze. 

The creature didn’t even seem to notice them, continuing its job of spewing out bubbles and making them explode moments later. Mikhael quickly ran up to Aubrey and stared at her… scared but also showing more anger than he actually felt. 

Aubrey got the message, shutting herself up until they left the vicinity of the monster. Adra, not willing to look at the thing for more than one second, pushed everyone away, took the flashlight (shocking Kel who was somewhat entranced by their new find) and went to the side of the creature… walking through the sticky goop. It felt like a combination of glue and sewage.

The rest of the group quickly followed, not wanting to stay in the relentless night of the cave system they were in. The scratching and the smell were slowly dissipating, as they turned left and began walking down - to Mikhael’s happiness. They were a bit worried by the fact that this place was more populated than it seemed to be, nonetheless they trusted the compass that they would be safe.

~~~

It felt like they had been stuck in here for an hour… or two… or four. Their legs were numb, their hands were tired, the endless corridors and endless directions felt random and inconsistent. Going up and down the hallways, they have seen a couple of smaller “wall sponges” as Adra had called them. Their shoes were still slightly sticky and the smell of the liquid was not only the same one of the blood of these creatures, but also it was very annoying to walk with.

Kel was holding the flashlight very lightly, his grip was gentle compared to how tightly he would hold onto the tool. Everything about this had been tiring him, and the lack of any water or food to refill his body was even worse. The fact that the air was full of dust did not help. He looked behind himself and saw that his friends were in even worse condition. 

Aubrey was hanging on somehow, but Mikhael and Adra looked like walking corpses. Running every 5 minutes and then stopping to take a break was not a good idea.

The basketball player sighed, and continued walking. The tunnel they were in was big, and it was also going down. Something that all of them appreciated a lot. Going up these tunnels proved to be a bigger challenge than they suspected, mostly because of the fact that when going up, the holes provided less friction making climbing them harder and sometimes causing them to slip and fall down. The whole process required their full attention and energy they did not have.

The tunnel was turning left constantly, as if it was a spiral. Walking down was also not a fully easy task as well. As they have realised, the lack of a smooth walking surface, the angle they were walking down in, and the holes that reduced the friction, made the possibility of falling down a lot higher. 

Luckily, it was easier for all of them to balance this out than going up. Kel looked up at dust falling very slowly at him, before groaning angrily and-

“HEY!” Adra shouted, her voice louder than it was ever before, “WE FOUND IT!” 

A surge of energy was something only she had got. The sight of the familiar hole they had entered through probably made her the happiest she had ever been… it felt like living again. 

She sprinted towards it, not concerned if she fell down. This - not surprisingly caused her to almost fall head first into the floor; she was lucky or skillful enough to regain her balance and touch the wall.

Aubrey grinned, and followed the lady, while Mikhael stuck to the wall but still tried to slide down as fast as possible. Kel, shone the flashlight at the hole, making the faint light coming off of it a bit less needed when traversing this empty place. 

In moments, all of them were already outside or climbing outside. Their noses felt only their sweat and the smell on their boots that was almost entirely gone. 

Vance was looking at them from the front seat, grinning, before leaving the vehicle and running to help them go down. It felt so refreshing to see the three purple moons above them, to see the dark empty sky and the tiny islands that were floating above them, blocking some of the light coming from above. 

The rainbow light of the compass needle was seemingly brighter than ever before, as if it had feelings and knew they were coming back to its safe place.

“What’s the smell?” Vance exclaimed, shivering a bit upon smelling the disgusting blood-like slime that had stuck to their shoes. Polly looked out of the back, tilting her head and seeing that Adra… was smiling. 

It was not a large grin like Vance’s, but it was big enough for her to notice. 

It was a bit calming that her… friend? Well… yes, could still allow herself to feel happiness.

“Nothing big,” Mikhael answered, entering the other front seat and getting ready to rest. “Just some dark goop,” 

Vance smiled, and jumped back into the vehicle, closing the door behind himself. Aubrey, Kel and Adra jumped to the back, Adra resisting Kel’s help and jumping up herself. 

The past citizens of Faraway heard the engine roar and the wheels beginning to turn again. The sudden bumps and the rainbow net to hold their stock in place were back once again, returning to their familiarity… but changed.

~~~

“So, where are we heading to now?” Polly asked, holding her coloured cards with numbers tightly. 

The story of the maze of tunnels was a chilling one, and the game of UNO seemed like something they could do in the background while listening to them describe every single detail of that place… 

Adra talking was something she didn’t expect… Did that punch really do that much? She wasn’t a fighter herself, and she couldn’t imagine that it would help her.

“I had asked Kel for a very certain place,” Vance shouted from the front seat, listening to the UNO game behind him… 

The only screams of anger that he could hear were Aubrey’s meaning that it was still a somewhat balanced game. It would only take a couple of minutes for it to descend to complete fury. It was kind of amusing to see Kel ticked off a bit more than normal. 

Kel nodded before answering.

“I asked the compass for a more permanent place… that we can stay in,” He stated, while taking one card from the deck, it was blue, as were the rest of his cards in his hand. 

Aubrey’s turn was next, something that would let out another groan from her as her two cards in hand turned to three.

“What will we do there?” She asked, looking at her cards and the yellow two in the middle of the entire back. Mikhael was looking through his cards, he had a large pile from the incident with two loops of + cards… He thought he had enough.

“I do not know,” Kel responded, looking at Vance who didn’t notice Kel’s stare. “I know that all of us need a break… and maybe we will be able to live in a place that is safer than whatever this wasteland is… I trust that our new home, and hopefully not last, will become not only a place for us to live, but for others to live as well.” 

Mikhael placed a red two on the pile in the middle, Adra was next; she huffed lightly, happy that Mikhael didn’t use his collection of + cards… he was probably traumatised by holding almost one fourth of the entire deck.

“Sounds like a good plan…” Polly exclaimed, waiting for Adra to play something, “Will we return to saving others?” 

Kel thought about the question… Will we? 

He questioned himself for a very short while before the answer became quite clear.

“Probably yes,” Aubrey answered quicker than Kel could, while Adra placed a red four and shouted out UNO! Louder than the wheels that were pushing the dust away, “We do not want to live alone for a while probably, as fun as it can be… I am certain some of us will be happy to explore this shithole more.”

“Language,” Adra added in, Kel’s nod of confirmation was stopped by a sudden laugh and fall onto the hard metal floor they were on. A loud thud echoed throughout the vast emptiness of this black desert. 

Aubrey sent daggers to the woman in front of her, while she responded with a grin similar to… Mari’s.

Fuckin’ hell, she realised, That is where she got that from, isn’t it.  

The game continued normally for another three to four turns before it began descending into complete madness. Adra had to take more cards, and Polly somehow had more attacking cards than Mikhael. Aubrey was shouting at Kel for bouncing back more than half of the shots to her while she only had numbers. 

The game ended with Adra winning, as Mikhael was not able to find a single attacking card in his large deck… even if he had later discovered he had some but in the entire mess he couldn’t find a single one.

The group of friends smiled at each other a bit more, while they continued to drive into the distance.

~~~

A rainbow campfire and the benches around it were lighting up the area around them. They had stopped a few hours ago already, the stone and smooth texture was worse than the mattresses they had stolen from a random part of a giant shop they raided a few days back. 

This time, they stopped because Vance was getting sleepy. And he was a light-sleeper. This gave them the idea to chill next to the campfire for a bit until he wakes up and they are ready to continue the drive.

Aubrey, Kel and Mikhael were trying to make a song and “sing” with the campfire playing different instruments at once, all of them making a calming and perfectly mixed tune, the instruments making the emptiness around them seem a lot familiar and friendly. 

With the fake looking fire, and the thicker smoke clouds emanating upwards from its colourful blades they call flames, it all helped them think that everything would be alright.

Adra and Polly were sitting on a bench opposite to the ones of the goofballs in front of them. It made them smile that the chiller vibe of the past day or so was now in place. The tension between all of them somewhat gone, the stress about saving people that may not be alive, gone as well. Polly looked at Adra before asking a simple question.

“Did that punch really help?” Adra nodded yes, even if she didn’t feel that different. 

Maybe something else had happened during that short period of time, something she completely forgot. Was it her that thought this much, or was actually helping them something she didn’t know she needed to do. The ocean of thoughts and theories came back, with her on a larger and more stable boat, drifting through the calmer waves of the deepest places in her head. 

She saw herself looking at the depths, still awaiting her to take another plunge one other day. For a second, she thought that she saw Mari and Sunny… looking from the water back at her. Happy.

“I do not know, really,” Adra actually answered, looking back at the three teens trying to sing and writing something on pieces of paper. They looked happy. “It felt freeing to do something, to actually feel like I actually helped them. The first thing I did when everything broke down was think if I should jump down… but now I feel so stupid for even questioning that. I do not feel that much better, but enough that I can see that… I still have a life to live.”

“Didn’t you always have one? You are still here after all…” Polly replied, before quickly adding in, “I know that they both died, but you could have done it after Sunny’s death… and you didn’t.” Adra looked at the ocean, and then up at the cloudy skies that looked as if they were about to rain. Would they force her underwater?

“I was scared- still am,” She began feeling tears slowly gather up on her eyelids, “I really miss them, Polly. I wish I could have been a better person. I could have stopped everything and could have helped when they needed me.” Polly opened her mouth, before closing it without letting any sounds escape her. 

Adra continued after a brief moment of silence, “I felt as if I couldn’t do anything after that. Everything I would touch would just die and rot… I thought I was cursed…” Tiny sobs could escape her, the water dam that she wanted to stop so much was slowly cracking. “But I am not. All of those decisions were my fault...”

Her blurry eyes closed as more and more salty water fell down onto the rocky and dusty ground of the place. The teens stopped playing in the background, as she could hear footsteps approach them. After some talking in the background she couldn’t hear because of the crying… 

Adra felt arms wrap around her… She opened her eyes to see that everyone (except Vance who was still sleeping) gathered up to hug her. 

She smiled before another sob was let out…

And then, she noticed something weird happen… The dust that was on the ground was completely destroyed by her tears. The woman looked again, her head down and left overs of her red eyed water fell down onto the dusty rocks. The ash had quickly dissipated upon touching the water drop. 

Adra opened her eyes wide open. With the hug slowly ending, and smiles of all of her friends becoming visible to her face, she brushed off the tears that were left and sprinted to the truck.

“I will be back!” She shouted, while jumping into the vehicle next to them… excited to check her theory. 

The mini-truck wiggled slightly, while Vance was sleeping in the front seats, snoozing lightly. She could hear the faint sound of his sleep, it didn’t match the rhythm of the music that was playing in the background. Adra began digging through the piles and piles of items. 

She remembered Polly trying to sort them on the first days with them, but it always lacked any sense as they would always fall onto each other or jump.

Her eyes sparkled as she found a half filled bottle of water. She quickly snatched it, leading a couple of miscellaneous items to fall down and make a couple somewhat loud thuds (luckily, not waking up the sleeping driver). The woman - with the plastic water bottle tightly in her hand - jumped out of the car and neatly landed on the rough dusty ground. The ones that were resting at the campfire were staring at her, perplexed by her sudden energy.

“I think I discovered something quite interesting,” Adra stated, the music stopping by itself as the rainbow campfire also seemed curious about the bottle of water. While the rest of her friends gathered up around her, Adra knelt down and grabbed a scoop of the dust from the rock floor, leaving the water bottle on the ground.

“Now, can someone take the water bottle and pour a bit of it onto my hands?” She asked, “So that the water will land on the ash,” She added. Kel took the plastic bottle, accidentally squeezing it a little with his quick grip of a basketball player, and opened it up… He gently poured a bit of its contents onto her hands. The ash completely disappeared, as if it had never existed, in a couple of water drops.

~~~

“Aubrey?” Kel asked her after approaching her on the back of the side of the vehicle. They have been driving for the past couple of hours. Adra and Polly were the only ones that had money in that very long game of monopoly. Kel had just lost, while Aubrey hadn’t been playing for about an hour now. She was just staring into the emptiness… thinking.

“Hey,” She replied, looking at her friend for a second before returning to her normal activity. She flipped her left hand and turned it into a bowl, gathering the dust that was falling onto her hand. Kel mimicked her, doing the same. The faint texture of the dust was not an uncomfortable one.

“I have a question I have been meaning to ask since forever,” Kel continued, she looked at him and nodded yes, awaiting his next words. He took a deep breath and let it go… whatever the answer may be. “Do you think Sunny’s death is our fault?” Aubrey huffed heavily before answering.

“You want my answer or the correct answer?” She responded with a question of her own, her eyes still looking at the boundless void.

“Your answer,” Kel answered slowly and carefully, still thinking if what he had just said was something he wanted to know.

“Well, my answer is that yes,” Aubrey’s face turned a bit sadder, she was still grieving, like all of them probably. Kel looked back at Adra, she was too engrossed in the board game to actually hear them talking about this matter. “It is somewhat our fault, but I do not think that it is anything we could have stopped on these last three days.”

“I- Hm- I-” Kel stuttered a bit, wanting to give his own take before Aubrey stopped him.

“I do not want to think about this more, okay?” She added in, her face more concentrated on the black and boring ground of this melancholy world that they were forced into. 

Not only forced to breathe and live, but also forced to survive and try to understand. Their luck also meant that they had to see what was left of humanity after all. Kel didn’t walk away, deciding to stay with her in the silence and the short bursts of laughs in the background of the vehicle. “It is the past anyways, I do not think it matters that much.” She broke the silence as suddenly as it had come moments ago.

“The past matters though,” Kel countered, “Isn’t this saving mission just… a repeat of the same question…” She huffed again, it was more strained this time. Her hands were clinging onto a bat he hadn’t seen her hold before… or maybe he did but didn’t put that much thought into it. The graffiti on it was still as visible as it had been since the first time they woke up here.

“Yeah, right…” Aubrey somberly agreed, “I think we shouldn’t cling onto it too much, okay? We can’t come back to that anymore… We can’t come back to that life again, there is no one that can revert it.”

“Doesn’t mean we should forget it,” Kel added in, “I do not want to hold onto it as much as I did in that cave,but… If we find others, and we will survive, maybe… somehow we should preserve that memory…” His hands were more on the edge of the tiny metal wall of the mini-truck than before, one big jump of the car would probably cause him to fly out.

“You expect that there will be a generation that stays alive here and will never breathe air without this stuff?” Aubrey asked, dropping the gathered ash with one swing. Kel soon followed, his mouth opened but Aubrey continued, “Yeah, you may be right… I hope at least some greenery is still out there, so that they can experience something other than different shades of grey.”

“It is probably possible, do you want to try to find that place once we find this home of ours?” Kel smiled, bumping himself into Aubrey, almost knocking her over. She giggled a bit, standing up and responding with a fake swing of her new bat.

“Nah, first I wanna get some new clothes,” She looked at herself and then back at Kel.

“You don’t need them!” Kel argued, almost shouting it out for everyone to hear, “We would be stuck in one store robbing it for hours if we did come there!”

“What?! NO?!” Aubrey replied confused and slightly ticked off, ready to start another round of useless bantering. 

The wheels of the car were still spinning around, kicking the tiny layer of ash that was there. The ground seemed smoother than the one they were riding on beforehand. Mikhael and Vance were talking about a graffiti Mikhael really wanted to paint. Adra was finally ending the game of Monopoly, and the two goofballs at the back were getting more and more heated.

Everything was coming back to normal… the new normal for them, the citizens of Faraway.

~~~

The mini-truck suddenly started to move at an angle that wasn’t straight. They seemed to be going a bit up. The compass tied to the giant net holding everything down was still pointing with its - very shiny - needle, pointing towards the same direction as for the past few hours. The whole vehicle was already partying, full of excitement to see their new home.

Mikhael was the first one to start making theories - about an hour ago - of a giant modern castle and many smooth walls he could graffiti on. Vance instead said that he would like a more normal house with a couple of beds for all of them and many shelves for their stolen goods. Kel added that he wanted the house to have a court for sport, when Aubrey said that she wanted it to have a garage so that she could create something with Mikhael and Vance. Polly and Adra were less realistic though, both of them wanting a somewhat small but comfy garden.

The ride up was a new thing, as the compass was shining brighter and brighter every minute, the entire group was looking forward to seeing if their new home would be as spectacular as they wanted it to be. This drive up lasted a few minutes before they saw the edge of their new home. Green trees were visible from afar, their tops covered by the dust… somehow the leaves and grass below them looked completely vivid… as if the sun still existed.

Everyone was in awe, too happy to say anything. With all of their mouths opened, and eyes staring at the vivid greenery… it felt like a weird dream. Aubrey started to blink and close her eyes, but the vision would not leave. In a moment, their entire scenery changed. They drove in between trees and grass, the smell of nature floating in the air, as if wind had come back for a moment. The dust wasn’t visible from here, it felt so much easier to breathe.

But the compass told them to drive more, Vance slowed down and gently dodged the trunks. There were patches of small flowers and taller grass all around, sticks and stones were lying around. Out of nowhere, a bug flew by, one single insect… it was a bee. The further they went into the vividly green world that they didn’t think could exist, the more they saw. Ants nests, more insects, birds and their nests… berries and apples were hanging off some of the trees.

“This place looks wonderful…” Aubrey was the first one to say anything, as everyone else just took it in. 

And then, they drove out of the trees onto an almost empty prairie with little hills sprinkled around, flowers growing left and right, buzzing and flying bugs living their lives like they had never changed. They drove, distancing themselves from the medium-sized forest that seemed to cover the edges of this place… 

The colourful sky with the three shattered moons above was now his friendly night sky, reflecting a bunch of light onto them… the dust seemed to be gone from this place, replaced by a familiar white cloud floating up above the vivid grass.

They began to go up again, the wheels driving on the ever-growing grass of the place. It looked as if they were driving back home, back at a place that they recognised. It felt so familiar, yet so new and distant at the same time. Butterflies were jumping from one flower to the other, interested in the vehicle and giant creatures that had come.

“It does…,” Kel responded to Aubrey, delayed by a couple of minutes. He just wanted to jump out of the vehicle already and roll down the hill in the grass and flowers. He had missed a place like this, a place that he could lose himself in and somewhat relax. And then, they saw their new home and a new surprise.

A somewhat big glass structure that was somehow holding up from the Shattering was in front of them, some of its walls and ceiling seemed broken. It looked like a greenhouse. Next to it, there was a similar sized wooden house. Its walls were brown, the windows looked a bit cracked, and the roof was painted blue. 

The paint on the roof didn’t look the freshest. Behind these two buildings, there was a large body of water… spanning further than the horizon. It was surrounded by the forest and the field around it.

All of them felt a bit of water gather up under their eyes, as Vance stopped the mini-truck in between the two buildings. The compass needle was spinning around, shining brightly, dancing as much as they are. They left the vehicle, jumping out of it almost instantly and feeling the fresh air, the grass, the dirt beneath them. 

They could physically see and feel a world they had lost, and now a part of it regained. They didn’t ask what would happen next. They didn’t ask why this was happening or if it would last forever.

They just enjoyed it.

~~~

Kel smiled happily, leaving the room they dedicated to storage, and putting back the last thing they had. The house was quite spacious, even if it hadn’t looked that big from the outside, as it had an underground basement part and a floor above the ground. 

Kel saw Adra, Aubrey, Vance and Mikhael playing UNO in front of the large table that was in the living room. The living room was connected to the kitchen, both of them being in the same room. A couple of cracked windows were showing the outside world, a couple of bugs were already looking at them and shortly after, flying away.

His friends were laughing, as everything had been put in place, and all of the rooms were relegated to someone. There was also a large list - stuck to the not working fridge - of things they had to do before they brought others in, like getting electricity, piping to work, and other things that would require Kel and a couple of other people to go outside of this dreamland and back on an roadtrip. 

But that would happen another day, for now they had to rest. And so they did.

Kel was too tired to play that chaotic game of shouting, colours and numbers, and so he went to his room. His room was also Mikhael’s, as it had one bed and one mattress. They agreed to switch their place every day. Adra’s and Polly’s room was on the ground floor, in front of the not working bathroom. 

Vance decided that he would sleep on the couch, while Aubrey got her own room, something she didn’t want to accept for them, but it felt right after what she had to live through beforehand. It was Adra’s decision.

The basketball player walked the slightly creaking stairs and walked through the corridor before opening the second door to the left. 

The first one was a tiny closet for their future clothes. To the right was Aubrey’s room and possibly Kel's future room, but they didn’t want to bother with moving things around for the next week. Right now, that room was the planning room. It mostly included desks from other rooms and other accessories that they hadn’t put in anybody’s place yet. 

But, it also included a large empty piece of paper that they used to create a map. As the Rainbow tool could in fact draw a map… something Kel never thought of asking it to do, mostly because they didn’t need to know where something was. The drawing was made by the graffiti artist himself, and it was quite accurate.

All of them decided that most of them would rest for a week or two - something they knew how to track, as the house had a working digital clock inside. They had discovered that they had spent three weeks and five days travelling. Almost a month in a vehicle. In three days, by looking on the map and their speed, some of them would go to the closest shop with food and seeds, as well as trying to find someone who knows something more about gardening.

They could also forage for food next to the forests, and they already saw that there were fish inside the giant… lake? Sea? Ocean? 

Whatever it was. But most of them agreed that they had to keep the balance of life here stabilised, and so they would be keeping that at a minimal level. 

The future didn’t look easy, or fully bright, but there was a future. 

Something Kel - or the others - had not expected to get since that one day.

That one day… They hadn’t thought about it too much. It still was a giant blur infecting all of his memories. A giant storm, a windy tornado, everything crashing and breaking… it hurt to think about it, it didn’t make sense why it happened. 

Their room was almost fully empty, with two windows - one on the left, the other in front of the door - one desk, one night stand, one bed, two contacts, a slightly broken and dusty red rug, and now one additional mattress lying on the ground. 

Today was Kel’s turn to sleep on the bed, the Rainbow tool making him very tired. He jumped onto the bed, almost as fast and as delicately as when he stepped into the water closeby. It was very comfortable, the pillow was fluffy and somehow tidy, some dust that looked completely different than the ash was floating around now that the dusty blanket was being used.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Happy to know that he would wake up tomorrow, ready for the next adventure with his friends… his new family.

<~~~>

Entry 54 - Hello, this is Prin writing here. My plan finally went into full motion, the boy is becoming my student and I am going to be teaching him everything I know. After he gets old enough, I will be able to tell him everything, and then… he will be able to leave, alone. Maybe with me by my side if he wants that.

Chapter Text

Entry 125 - Hello, this is Prin writing here! Today we made an accidental explosion! Well, by “accidently” I mean that I planned it and he didn’t know so… I scared him. That was my plan, until I realised that he found it more beautiful than scary. It was a fun experiment for me, and for him. I hope he is happy.

<~~~>

…

The alarm is ringing somewhere in the house. Instead of laying on the nightstand next to his awful looking blanket, the annoying sound that woke him up each time was coming from the mysterious unknown. Charles - with his baggy eyes and his sluggish movements - rolled out of bed. He fell onto the shirt from a week ago, and some underwear he was not interested in cleaning.

He didn’t have the time.

He didn’t.

He.

Time.

Focus.

…

It was today.

Charles sprinted towards his closet, and put on the only clothes that were tidy, the ones he bought yesterday in a rush before today. The day. The day all of this was building up to.

Oh… he could feel his hands shake just on the single thought about this. Everything was ready. Everything had to… no… it wasn’t…

BUT! It will be. And with that thought, Charles almost died on the stairs, bumping into some of the trash he didn’t have the time to clean. He would have time after all of this was done. All of this would be done today. Everything.

Charles carefully stepped through the house, trying not to get hurt or trip on the mess that was inside out of the house, everything hero and kim did was gone, including the lack of trash on the floor. The chess board that they used was broken in half, pieces still scattered in the same place as when he had accidentally destroyed it.

Small remnants of his pitiful Gem training still lingered on the board, a part of it had a couple of tiny pieces of the red Gem embroidered in it. The kitchen lacked any silverware, or any plates… their shards making the house a dangerous course that already made him bleed once.

If today didn’t work out, it was all for nothing.

Nothing.

“I will do it.” He whispered to himself, or said it in his head, no one listened either way.

Leaving the house, Zenith could feel the ground below him shake. He tried to ignore it, as he was the only one moving.

~~~

#2 - Hero and I are getting our keys to our shiny new apartments. Both of us didn’t smile at the camera, Hero seems to be looking somewhere further away.

#3 - Another game of Chess. This one has been photographed by Hero as he is about to win. I desperately try to find the checkmate, as Hero told me that there is one. I couldn’t find it.

#4 - Kim took a photo of the flower shop she applied to work at… She still would have to give me the money, as she is still not welcomed in the stores…

#5 - A photo of Hero staring at a pond of water he made himself. I thought it looked funny.

#6 - Another game of Chess. Kim seemed to be finally getting the upper hand, sadly she still lost due to losing her queen with a single stupid move… Oh Kim… You will get the win one day!

#7 - A picture of Kim and me trying to chill out in the park with the locals, the theories they have about Charles… are disturbing to us and honestly kind of sad… I didn’t want to tell them the truth. Kim was about to tell them how wrong they were about him but she stopped herself. 

#8 - A picture of Hero staring into the void and crying, he is standing very close to the edge… I hope my family and his family are alright…

#9 - Kim looking at the calendar, papers lying on the table as we try to figure something out. The day of the Invasion is soon and the fact that we heard some rumours about Monsters is not making us happy… How much more did you hide Charles?

~~~

Kim locked the apartment behind her, as Hero stood in the corridor, waiting for her. Today was the day, and her shaking hands weren’t helping her in forgetting that. She quickly hid them in the pockets, not trying to look too unstable. It was not like her to get stressed but well, there was too much to lose.

She had already begun to enjoy this city and its residents… well except those pesky shop guards. It was beginning to feel weirdly comforting to wake up and know that she isn’t alone. All of them were in grief and all of them were somehow dealing with it…

She and Hero were not as happy as most, even though they knew that there is a way to fix this mess. They just had to wait for… ugh… Zenith… to stop wasting his time here. Well, at least there was hope. The citizens believed in Zenith a lot more than they did.

It. Made. Her. SO-

Kim barely stopped herself from punching the walls or maybe even the door. She took a deep breath and-

“You coming, Kim?” Hero made her jump, “You have been locking the door for a solid moment there.”

She pouted at him, while he smiled for a split second before his expression returned to its regular calmness.

“And what? Is that a problem old man?” Kim retorted, rolling her eyes and putting her hands into her pockets.

“Yes, actually.” He pointed out, walking next to her, his eyes looking at the city below. No one knew what was going to happen today.

They wouldn’t believe that a monster invasion would happen, who would believe that.

“I have to show you something, maybe it could help us with the monster problem that is coming soon.” Hero opened the door to the stairs next to the broken elevator.

The cracked walls and tight corridor wasn’t a comfortable place to be in, especially that a single misstep could cause them to break their heads. Both of them were silent, sprinting down as fast as possible just so that they didn’t have to be stuck in this cage. As stable as this building was, this part wasn’t really renovated or masked in any way, reminding them that they were still… not… home.

Charles will help them though. After today.

The bottom floor, being the safest one to them, the closest to the dark grim ground they already somewhat enjoyed walking on. Hero and Kim were walking through the streets.

They were cleaned after the collapse of their world, pebbles and small residue still haunted the place but it was something the people had dealt with in quite a quick time. Mostly because that was the main focus of everyone, to get the city back up and running.

Most of the buildings were still broken, or to be demolished. Building projects already began on the side, and everything was not going so smoothly. The food situation was being resolved by people going off dangerously to the void far away from the city.

Luckily water was not that big of a problem as food. The water conservation sector being the biggest one out of all of them. Bathrooms got quickly connected, pipes were fixed in the easiest homes or apartment blocks. It was still chaos, but somehow they lived.

They adapted. This was a city that would live.

Today was the deciding day.

And most of them didn’t even know. Hero bit his tongue, and took a deep breath, hoping this would work.

“Why are we even planning to help Zenith with this monster thing, it is just a rumour anyways…” Kim shrugged, “It probably isn’t even-”

As they approached the edge of the city, seemingly every guard from the entire place was gathering in a large group. Gasoline was spilt on the floor, some of it seeming to be dripping down through the tiny holes in the ground. The pool was giant, the black goop already beginning to be covered by the dust that was floating on it.

Kim, stunned by the sight, followed Hero. He led her to the flower shop she had been working at before, the tap that was installed for emergency uses, had a bunch of buckets next to it.

“What is that about?” Kim asked, still looking in the direction of the gasoline.

“I do not know; I think that new President guy is planning something as well.” Hero shrugged, “Luckily I have something planned as well… we just need the help of one person…”

“He won’t help.” Kim turned her back, facing the Lookout Spot again.

“Why wouldn’t he?” Hero saw a tiny person walking on it, making circles on the radio tower.

“You know how he is.” Kim rolled her eyes once more, not even wanting to think about Zenith.

“Not exactly, we didn’t get to talk too much.” Hero pointed out.

“Yeah, what I meant. He was busy with all of that being the Hero bullshit, instead of actually helping to fix this mess.” Kim already wanted to move on but Hero interrupted her.

“Sure…” Hero had to think for a second, making Kim uncertain if she should say anything, “But there has to be a reason he is helping this city in particular.”

“Pff-” She scoffed and after a while sighed, “Yeah… there is probably a reason.”

~~~

The sky was still dropping its normal amount of dust… Its ash-like nature still makes him confused. His long greasy hair moving just slightly with his head slowly bobbing. The platform he was on, as barely stable it looked, was still somehow withstanding all this chaos.

His head was looking down, at the ground below. At the empty city centre that was ruined by… sigh…

Zenith, they called him. That is the name he gave them, because his own seemed too boring.

Zenith, they called him. To give them faith that some being came to help.

Zenith. They would remember him not as Charles, but as…

Zenith, the Saviour.

…

…

Yeah… that sounds… nice…

Charles thought, looking at the shiny rainbow compass in his hands. The black circular plate was holding the entire compass together, with the rock as the needle. He was gripping tightly onto it, his arms were already beginning to shake from the stress. The cold bar that was his anchor point, which was also fencing off the drop from him, was digging into his skin. Its roughness piercing the first layer of it.

Zenith, the Saviour.

It felt perfect. This moment was perfect. Why couldn’t it stay like this? The monsters were approaching, the rumours were out, he could see that President Killer was planning to use the entire police force against them. He is just one person, even with the Gems how much could he do.

Zenith, the Saviour.

He had the chance to write this entire wrong, at least a bit, right. To help against the fight; but will they remember that he was the one to help… or will they attribute the win to that politician. The risk was too high, he had to make a spectacle. He had to go alone. That was the only way to keep it.

Zenith, the Saviour.

…

Charles shed a tear, staring at the rainbow glow once more, the one that was given to him. There was only one per dimension, at least that is what he read from the Archives while in Signal Space. One dimension, out of the thousand, was now unable to travel through them without Signal Space’s help or interference.

And this stone was given to him.

…

He opened his mouth, his jaws quivering and his teeth clenching. He gasped for air, as his legs were not helping him stand.

“Coordinates…” His voice shaking in fear, he knew the answer. He hadn’t even tried it yet… his entire stay…

The compass opened its tiny screen, ready to give an answer it probably can’t. The dimension was severed from the map the moment it…

“Home…” Charles asked for the waypoint, to teleport back… To see them again… to see if they survived… to see if they had died… to see his friends and family and tell them that he is alive… to tell them who he met… that humans still are alive… that this place is something new… unexplored… that…

“<E-R-R-O-R - TRY ANOTHER LOCATION>” was written on the screen.

…

His vision blurred. He took a step back, falling onto the metal. Even though it was predictable, even though it was something that… he knew would happen… it… it didn’t feel real.

It… there was no way back… there was no way… there…

How would he find it? The original from this realm? It was practically impossible…

…

His clothes were getting wet. The compass landed on the metal. The text remained. It didn’t change. It wouldn’t change.

It…

Charles couldn’t hear himself sobbing. He couldn’t hear himself crying and hugging himself, rolling and trying to grasp someone, something. There was no one.

Not even Zenith.

He wouldn’t do it. He was one person, against an entire army of beings that he had never seen before. What were they able to do, he didn’t even know…

Charles…

Charles…

CHARLES!

He heard something.

He felt something, not wet, or pain, or angry.

His hand wiped his sobbing eyes. For a clear moment, Charles saw Kim holding his arms.

“Can you hear me? Nod, if you can.” Kim’s voice was in the background… he nodded.

“Good,” She exclaimed a bit happily, “Try to follow my breathing, okay?”

Breathing…

He could feel his lungs get filled with that dust once more, it was not enough for them to suffer, but enough for him to feel. He still could get used to it…

Breathing…

“Slow…” Her words pierced the barrier he had crafted, it wouldn’t have annoyed him if not this moment, “And steady…”

“Slow…” He hated how he helped her, “And steady…”

But what was he supposed to do..? He had to be there, he had to fight.

Deep breaths… Deep breaths… I am good enough…

“You are doing well,” Kim continued, her voice shockingly calming, “Keep at it…”

Deep breaths… He was doing it… He was actually… doing it…

Moments passed, the Lookout Spot stood in the same place it did before. The nebula, that brought light to the world, that shone from the first moment, the beautiful storm in the centre, stared.

At the city, at the monsters, at Kim, at Charles.

Charles felt his senses return to him, his eyes staring at the storm above. It was beautiful. He had never looked up and actually saw the beauty of it. He wished he could just… analyse it and work on it.

He heard someone moving next to him. He glanced to the side and saw Kim, looking at the same colourful sight.

“It looks nice from up here… you are right.” Kim stated, holding her hands behind her, so that her head didn’t hit the dusty metal that Charles had to clean up every time he was here.

“Why… are you back…?” Charles - his throat still sore - asked.

“Cutting straight to it… geez,” She rolled her eyes and took a deep breath herself, “Hero has a plan to deal with those monsters… You would be of help to us if something goes wrong.”

“This is too dangerous for-” The boy began to explain…

“Shut up.” She interrupted, “The Assistant guy already has a plan as well. Hero doesn’t trust it, but we don’t want you to get into another bickering with him… especially if the danger is as big as you make it sound.”

“...So what do you want me to do?” He quickly questioned.

“Wait,” Kim answered, “If you see that something is going wrong, you come to help… besides, I can’t imagine how tired you must be after that…”

“Where’s Hero?” Charles gave his final question.

“He is trying to get a couple people to help us,” Kim shrugged, “Something about personal growth or other old person stuff…”

~~~

People from all over the city were gathering in the city centre, ready to start the vote between him and that bastard… he honestly didn’t care anymore about who won… he kind of wished he didn’t…

Charles was staring at Kim and Hero chatting next to the store, his colourful binoculars tinting the image a little. They seemed so happy at the moment; able to live here and smile somehow… Was it because of the nature of these humans? They maybe were different, more resistant or strong-willed then he and his friends…

This didn’t change the fact that… he hated that his chest still hurt. That he still was told to wait it out, even if he would help. He just… couldn’t handle it… He could not focus.

…

And then a step.

A loud one.

The very young adult, the 18 year old that wanted to become someone bigger, was now looking not at the city, but at those two. They were standing, and staring, at a bunch of creatures running their way.

A bunch of giant spiders, each one the size of a training room, was speeding towards the city. Their deformed legs gripping onto the ground and jumping like mutated frogs. He had never seen such fragile, and spiky, bodies ever before. Some of them were leaking black goop all the time, the fact they were even alive confused him…

…

Oh god.

He had to help.

They wouldn’t survive this… unless…

The plan, the one his “rival” made, he hoped it worked.

He had just promised that he would rest, that they will deal with it, that it isn’t important to be the saviour.

And so… he waited…

He stared, from above. His stomach began turning and squeezing him from the inside. The shaking of the monsters was moving even the Lookout Spot a little bit… even with his own additions to make it stay up the entire building could collapse…

Hopefully it didn’t…

Screaming.

Fear.

Pain.

He had to watch. Observe.

Running.

Crying.

Panic.

He was too weak. He couldn’t play the Hero.

…

Am I really?

Charles took a glance at his Gem Bag; then another swoop at his tools he had on him.

His eyes sparkled, looking at a tiny metal bar that was tied to him.

He felt his body still crying, still asking to breathe, but maybe… it was worth this one time.

Roaring.

Fire… A large fire was overwhelming the monsters. He could see them burning, dancing in the flames. Their arms, their legs, their spider-like structure, it was growing. It was moving with the fire. The flames were being trapped by the monsters. Their size growing, their skin that moved with them, was capturing it… glowing.

Oh god.

Shaking.

This is the “horribly wrong” moment… right?

Charles took a deep breath , focusing and feeling some kind of bliss. He took his normal metal rod, and shouted words he wanted for such a long while.

“MAGNUM OPUS”

The stick instantly began turning, sparkling, changing. It instantly changed into a glove, digging into his skin a little sharply so that the experimental gem potions were flooded into his blood. He could feel his eyes get stronger, the flames in them began glowing.

The gauntlet connected to his mind, for the first time since the tests. 10 different weapons: a knife, a sword, an axe, a machine gun, a scythe, a rocket launcher, a boomstick, a yoyo and a boomerang; that were made from metal circled the glove in the air, controlled by his thoughts themselves. Each one full of each perfect pure Gem.

It felt so… perfect.

It felt right.

“This is gonna be fun…” Charles smiled, everything working as he had designed it.

~~~

“TURN ON THE WATER KIM!” Hero shouted, his voice quivering as his miniscule weapon seemed even more ant-like that the monsters came. 

They grew, they grew with the fire. They bathed in it, roared and laughed. Their liquid slimy bodies moving towards the first layer of buildings, pushing and exploding. Screaming, blood, all of it was back, harder than ever.

Kim pushed the tap open, hurting her hand just a little bit from the tight hold.

The stream of water began filling the bucket. The specks of dust above it, slowly descending and disintegrating in the water. Hero was standing above the bucket, waiting for it to get filled up…

Shouting, crying, guns firing. This was not happening.

“IS THIS YOUR ENTIRE PLAN?!” She couldn’t take it, how are they going to go against t- this…

One of the monsters had noticed them. It seemed to be turning… towards them…

Hero took the bucket away from the tap and put another one under it. Kim, staring at the entire scene, froze. The fear is coming towards them, burning up and changing. Its skin crawled with it, its fangs lightened up the stone they were on, sharpening them.

…

The world froze, something in her just… clicked. Like a switch.

…

Kim took the bucket and with as much force as she could she threw its contents towards the monster.

Fearing for her life, her shaking eyes were now looking at how the flaming creature melted. The dust that was touched by Earth’s liquid, disappeared. The entire structure of the living being destroyed itself in front of her eyes, turning into just a splash of water on the ground, and dust on the sides.

“It-” Kim, the sudden silence and quick disintegration of it… Shocking would not be the word, but a part of the feeling she had felt at that moment…

Another bucket, filled up. Kim quickly took the empty one from the ground, the tiny bumps in it luckily weren’t holes. The rest of the monsters weren’t even close, as they seemed to be moving towards the other side of the city. Most of them are still bathing and having fun in the large fire, still consuming it and growing.

“What if they do not come over here?” Kim asked, sitting down on the ground while trying to calm herself down.

Deep breaths…

Hero didn’t reply, focusing too much on the task of filling every bucket with water.

step.

Kim jumped a little, getting goosebumps as the step was frighteningly silent but also closeby. She turned her head around and saw…

Charles.

This time he was actually looking kind of otherworldly. His eyes were shining with red and lime colours, covering the calm blue that was gone. The weapons spinning around his glove, all of them in the different colours of Gems and that metal that looked a bit more shiny than theirs.

“I can lead them here.” He said, his voice a bit louder than usual. He seemed a bit more tense than before…

“You sure we can handle them?” Hero asked, finally replying. Kim shot him an angry glare which he only got confused by.

“I can.” Charles replied the moment Hero finished talking, his speaking slightly too fast for it to be natural. “Will protect you guys if it is necessary.”

Another bucket finished filling up. Hero nodded, putting a new metal container in its place.

Kim snuck a look, seeing the Gem pouch still tied to Charles. She nodded with Hero, taking the metal bucket as carefully as possible.

Charles instantly jumped up into the sky, like a rocket, shooting itself off the ground. The nebula shone on him, as he grappled close to the ground next to the monsters and shot himself towards it at a speed even he wasn’t ready for.

Barely able to ungrapple and catch balance, he slid in between a couple fearful guards staring at the monsters with their empty guns on the floor. One of them was holding his right arm.

Charles grinned, pointing to Kim and Hero before they could even realise he was standing there.

“Help them.” A quick gust of wind caused him to basically teleport upwards, slightly above the tops of these hellish creatures.

Mid-air, the boomerang threw itself and cut through the tops and at least 2 limbs of a group of creatures. The creatures, as much as they roared in pain and began regrowing them, their attention was not grabbed to them but to the guards running towards his friends.

Charles, confused by this, appeared next to the two and tried to inspect them as quickly as possible.

The one holding his arm was bleeding.

Blood.

They were attracted to blood?

Is that why there were so many of them?

No time to think.

Charles slashed his other hand, the one without the gauntlet, just a bit too much. It hurt so much.

His adrenaline quickly picked up, the Gems flowing further into his blood. 

He propelled himself to another group of Monsters, as they were moving deeper into the city. The air around him forced out of the way, as Charles grappled onto the floor next to the enemies again. His blood made a short arc as he moved from the ground to the sky and back.

The swarm of 7 monsters instantly turned their monstrous limbs towards where he landed.

Satisfied with his result, he grappled up towards one of the buildings closer to Kim and Hero, waiting to see if they would follow him.

To his amusement, they did.

Charles - with his entire body moving at essentially double the speed - waited… and waited…

He would turn towards Kim and Hero very soon. The monsters just had to-

BANG!

~~~

This all had not gone how he wanted it to.

His guards - as he called them - were standing far from him, maybe slightly too close to the monsters themselves. They were supposed to be the ones killing them while the fire scared them off… instead…

“I guess I didn’t know what I was doing…” The Assistant thought to himself, looking at Zenith swoop in to save the day once again.

It annoyed him so much that all he had worked for before all of this was thrown into the void; every time he helped the city was forgotten due to this tragedy.

And this child, he was just able to keep everyone to himself. Everyone listened, everyone believed his tricks and antics. Everyone… except for his acquaintances.

They were the only ones that actually didn’t seem to enjoy his company, the ones that gave him the idea that there is more to this. That there was more depth to his character.

Maybe it was just… an overestimation… but his magic had to be somehow connected to this world. Looking at the lights that shone whenever he did something special, they didn’t feel as alien as they did.

The monsters roared in the background, their fiery voices muted in his head, as looked at the guards standing around him. They stopped shooting like he told them to hours ago, that is why he couldn’t hear them.

“GO BACK! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” The Assistant looked at the only people that respected him here. Had respected him.

“Zenith is dealing with it,” One of them shrugged, “He is clearly-”

The Assistant connected his fist with his cheek, forcing his body to fall down and his face to crash onto the concrete. The person dropped their gun onto the floor.

“GO BACK! ALL OF YOU.” The Assistant pointed at the monsters, and grinned, knowing that they wouldn’t be paid if he didn’t want to pay them.

They obeyed, all except one.

The Assistant rolled his eyes, looking at the young teen (maybe 20, but probably 19), grunting on the floor.

He sighed, and took the gun himself, it was just a tiny handgun. It was already loaded, he took out the magazine and saw 4 bullets in it.

He couldn’t let that child have the last laugh.

…

Another roar, another step forward. His heart was beginning to race unreasonably fast, he shouldn’t be stressed, this was something normal.

As normal as being here could be.

He could hear screaming, people shouting for help, stuck under some of the rubble that had been thrown to the floor due to this entire attack. The smell of blood that had tainted his early days here reinvited itself to his nose, reminding him of how much he had already lost.

How much more he would lose if the last thing he had, was gone.

Control.

No one would take it away from him, climbing the ladder just to lose it.

Click.

The gun loaded, he looked at the chaos that was happening.

Zenith was probably already sweating while a couple of the townsfolk, including his… friends… were…

Helping.

Why?

What happened?

When did this change occur?

Didn’t matter.

He just had to wait…

…

…

…………

Zenith jumped onto a building… probably to watch the chaos-

BANG!

A shot.

A single shot.

And he-

hit.

~~~

“again.” the Moth said, staring at him from a chamber somewhere far.

The cameras were all pointing at him, the microphones were all top tier. He was sweating, huffing and puffing his guts almost onto the metallic floor itself. All of his friends passed this test with ease, why couldn’t he?

The training robots moved around into their familiar places, they were hit so many times by him yet not a single dent was visible. It made him even redder to see that. The arena shifted its position a little, this time he would start having the high ground.

“They are making this really easy for me, aren’t they?” Charles thought, getting the test weapon ready, if he brought his own this would have ended 2 or 3 hours ago.

The test weapon turned itself into an axe this time, the heaviest weapon out of the bunch. Luckily, it was throwable and also hit hard.

“3” the Moth said from the speaker.

“2” Charles got ready.

“1” The dummies were beginning to clank and move, they would dodge his attacks.

“GO!” Another one ringing into him.

Not even a millisecond passed before he jumped and hit the first dummy. He leapt across the room to the second, striking it in the head, not as perfectly as his friends but still enough to kill. 

One of the dummies below him was going up the stairs towards him, leading Charles to intercept it with a jump and kick, smashing its head against the floor and slamming the blade into it. 

His mind went on autopilot, killing and destroying everything in sight for the millionth time today. He had to do it. Why wasn’t he fast enough? Why wasn’t he agile enough? His questions didn’t matter as without even realising Charles had frozen.

He didn’t know when, or why…

“again.” the mechanical emotionless voice told him.

“again.” He had destroyed everything, was he too slow?

“again.” What was he doing wrong?

“again.” Was everyone pushed to this limit?

“again.” How long has it been?

“ again. ” This would never end.

“ again. ” Not good enough. Not good enough. Not good enough. Not good enough. Not good-

~~~

Pain.

So. Much. Pain.

Blood.

He felt the bullet stuck inside his body. He knew exactly who it was. Charles quickly found the hole in his arm, the same one that had the gauntlet on.

Frustrated and feeling the blood begin to gather around, he heard the roaring of the monsters feeding on the fact that he was bleeding.

BANG!

This time he was ready. Charles dodged to the side, and turned himself towards where the bullet came from.

The monsters were coming closer, their burning bodies more unstable than his inner thoughts.

The boy saw the Assistant, shooting at him from a gun.

He would regret it… very… very soon.

Noticing how close the creatures were, Charles grappled to another building that looked on the brink of collapse - and as if he was making a loop - rushed to the two of them and the tiny help group they had already gathered.

“ANOTHER GROUP!” Charles shouted loudly, beginning to feel slightly weak…

His blood was shiny and colourful, his eyes glowing louder and harder. The adrenaline, heart beats, everything was so loud.

Kim rushed to the bloodied friend, saying something that he honestly spaced out for, the only thing in his mind was revenge.

“You wanted the Gems right?” Charles interrupted her, speaking so fast she could barely make it out, “Have it. Put your arm inside and grab a handful of it. Then, once out of the bag, imagine a weapon. Remember to focus on the weapon’s existence at all times, otherwise it will turn back to dust.”

He gave her a bag with his homemade dust out of pure Gems he had made. One of his first creations. Before the speechless girl could say anything, Charles’ eyes and body were already moving towards his next target.

“Remember to tie it before defending!” He laughed, a bit maniacally.

~~~

IT HAPPENED.

IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED.

She put her hand in the colourful dust. It felt so sharp and comfortable at the same time, spiky just enough to stick to her hand like glitter, but round so that she didn’t have to worry about any cuts.

Kim was obviously worried about Charles’ mental state at the current moment, but she knew that there was nothing to stop him at this point.

More monsters were approaching, as if following the others mindlessly. Hero and the others that began to gather up after the first couple throws, were doing great work. It seemed like almost a quarter of the city was working together. Shouting, motivating, trying to stay alive.

That is what they had been doing.

Trying to stay alive.

And try they will!

Focus. Deep breaths. Focus Kim!

She took out a handful, as Charles told her, and imagined something she always thought would sound cool.

A red and blue katana-like scimitar popped out of basically thin air. The handful grew into it, morphing into the handle in her arms. A chain locked to her hand was connected to the back of the handle.

Kim adored the blade for a second, not believing that its perfect smoothness and sharpness actually existed.

Sadly, the moment the girl looked at the monster, the Blade began to quiver and-

I have to focus on it. Right.

Feeling more powerful than ever, she continued repeating the word “Blade”, while picking up another handful into her left hand and turning it into a perfectly duplicate blade.

This is cool!

The first monster was approaching, they would be fine without her but who cared!

Kim ran a bit towards it and jumped straight at its fangs and walking skin. She stabbed through the skin, piercing and cutting it, opening up the guts and the limbs into dust and horrible smelling black goop. The monster was dead, falling down while its skin visibly turned into a mush pile of nothingness.

Her glasses covered a bit with the somewhat sticky blood, she stared at her blades, clinking and shining. This was so powerful.

And… tiring…

Before she felt it, her blades were already gone and she was barely staying up.

…

…

“At least this was cool as hell.” She thought before falling asleep, smiling.

~~~

“YOU SCUM!” Charles roared, his bleeding arm holding his weapon of choice, well… it was so tiny no one could see it right now…

“Don’t move.” The Assistant pointed the gun straight at his chest, Charles just grinned like a maniac. His smile was uncannily crazy, clearly full of adrenaline from all the killing he had done. It fueled him, this power.

The Assistant, being replied with a smile, stepped back. His fingers shaky as the roars in the background were continuing to make him fear this entire situation.

Charles loaded his gauntlet, a rainbow flash stunning his eyes, as 10 weapons floated and rotated around the centre. All of them pointed at him. The blood on the other hand was not even making Charles squeal in pain. 

He could die.

“Don’t MOVE.” The gun shook with the entire body.

“What will you do?” Charles stated in a surprisingly calm voice, devoid of any emotion.

Shank.

One of the 10 weapons, the metal knife that was shining in lime and blue, seemingly teleported in front of his neck, touching his neck with its blade… 

“Drop the gun.” Charles commanded, while the other 9 magical ways to murder anyone spinning around his hand.

The forces the Assistant commanded were frozen, clearly too scared to even take a step towards the Saviour.

“Drop the gun.” Charles repeated, the knife digging a bit deeper into his neck. 

…

A single moment.

BANG!

…

A nano-second.

CLANG!

…

Charles, using his gauntlet to parry the bullet away from himself, was now holding the Assistant above him by the neck, slowly choking him. The gun fell down, the rest of the weapons spun around Charles, waiting for more orders. The Gem Flames coming out of the Boy’s eyes, flowing through his blood, were dead and nebulous at the same time.

Another moment, a gasp, and the…

“Aghhh~!” His bones cracked, being thrown to the floor at a speed he didn’t even feel. It was as if time had passed without him even realising.

“Don’t come back.” Charles - the entity he was now, “I will take care of you otherwise.”

He stepped on the gun, destroying it into pieces smaller than the specs of Dust that were dancing in the sky…

The Nebula will shine in their eyes for longer than today.

<~~~>

Entry 1347 - Hello, this is Prin writing here. I am running away. I am sorry, Cyzor. I have to think about everything. Maybe I am not, I can’t think properly right now.

Chapter Text

Space.

Empty space.

Complete and utter darkness that didn't represent anything else.

No lights in the sky.

That is what she was seeing from her room. The one at the top of Entry Point, the one that was created by her right-hand man... that one day disappeared. She sat in her black grandiose chair, one embroidered with gold on its sides. Her shiny red and black wings (with white spots that looked like eyes) were spread out, relaxed and shining. The Gem lamps that were covering the entire place and simulated the day-light cycle of a planet, were beginning to turn dimmer and dimmer with each second. Night was approaching the ship, and soon everyone would be going off to sleep. Her antennae were completely straight, her legs were a bit too tense than she wanted them to be. She took a deep breath, her wings relaxed, closing themselves a bit.

Another day.

That day.

Half a decade of building up, many sleepless nights, months of planning...

So many worlds raided just so that they could do it.

In a week, they would open the biggest rift in the existance of the 1342 natural worlds and possibly many more fake ones, and destroy Annihilation. The titan Gem that they had discovered, that devoured life and Gems in their entirety. Its overwhelming red hue, and ability to make its own rifts, was the goal that Signal Space had been about for these years. This constant rush to one-up this mysterious monster.

It felt cathartic in a way. The fact that they could move back onto exploration and scientific studies, but now bigger and stronger.

Hopefully they will be able to discover more Gems, more combinations! More devices and worlds that they could call anomalies! With a group that was now four times bigger than when they began fighting Annihilation, it would be so easy to discover more...

Ceropia - if she could - would probably keep that Titan Gem as a pet, to study it, to learn why it went rogue and how to recreate that.

Huff... she sighed and looked at the other chair, one that was more fit for a human. This chair was green and yellow, and it was dusty, tucked away to the side.

It would be a lie to say that she didn't miss that man.

It would be a lie to say that she didn't want him to come back.

...

It was impossible to find him.

He was gone.

Somehow.

...

The door to her room suddenly opened, a gentle woosh coming out as 5 humans came inside the room without her permission. 5 young, genius and shockingly capable children.

Tiffany, dark and long hair, a tall and quite slim figure that allowed her to be the most agile out of the group.

Brent, green eyes (with no Gem powers), also tall and slim, but his quick planning skills were his good part, mostly taking the role of the one behind every important decision during a raid.

Both Brent and Tiffany were 21, older from the rest of the 19 year olds. It was funny... she couldn't believe that Humans had so little time, but such fast learning capabilities.

Next were two siblings, May and August, both of them were medium height and loved getting into trouble. Luckily, most of the time, they were the ones to solve their own problems as well. Quite the chaotic duo that she loved seeing in action.

The fifth person shocked even the Moth herself.

Penny.

A ruthless leader that was gone for the past couple months. She had disappeared, putting their entire mission late by one week. If she hadn't run away so suddenly-

"You are a week too early Penny," Ceropia turned her chair around slowly, she knew who they were, she didn't even have to look. "Annihilation's death is still one week away."

Silence.

Surprising, Penny normally would lose her temper at not being the first one to talk.

"I am not back here for your stupid mission," Penny's voice was... huh... Ceropia turned her chair fully, and stared at the five. Penny's eyes were sadly covered by a change in hair, her beautiful blue eyes covered by a layer of black hair that wasn't there before. "Where is Charles?"

"He is still on his test mission," Ceropia stood up, smiling, "No need to worry darling."

"He is not." Penny replied sharply, without even moving.

"We told you he is Pens," August added in, putting his hand on her shoulder, "He is-"

Penny slapped him back and finally eyed the Moth. Ceropia could clearly see the eyebags and tears coming out of her eyes.

"He is gone!" Penny shouted loudly, "Check the FUCKING map!"

Ceropia, still confused, shrugged. The moth slowly and teasingly moved towards the centre of her room, one that housed the only Riftworld map device to be ever constructed. She calmly typed in Charles' name and ID, the rest of the group walking towards it with anticipation.

...

<ERROR: LIVING BEING NOT FOUND>

"There was probably just an mistype somewhere," August tried to bring up the mood, while hit his back a bit too hard.

Ceropia typed in his name and ID again.

Tiff hugged Penny from the back, as Penny's blank stare at the monitor confirmed what she said.

<ERROR: LIVING BEING NOT FOUND>

Ceropia, perplexed by this, wrote his name again and again.

<ERROR: LIVING BEING NOT FOUND>

He couldn't be gone.

<ERROR: LIVING BEING NOT FOUND>

Was the system broken?

<ERROR: LIVING BEING NOT FOUND>

...

...

...

She clicked on a different input.

The Moth went back in her memory, and typed in the name of the Universe that she sent him to.

It was at the edge of her mind, but she still remembered it.

The breaths of those 5 humans were touching her sensitive wings, her antennae tensing up.

...

<ERROR: UNIVERSE NOT FOUND>

Trying not to listen to the slight sobbing in the background, Ceropia went into the info part of the map, the one that was hidden behind 3 codes only she and Prin knew, and then-

The number.

That one fucking number.

Natural Universe Count: 1341

Something destroyed a Natural Universe.

There was something stronger, than Annihilation.

...

Charles was gone.

Chapter Text

Entry 439 - Hello, this is Prin writing here. It has been quite a while, since a lot of things have been happening at the same time. First, Cyzor has been studying everything and is probably one of the most talented people in Riftworld. I am very proud of him. Secondly, I have been working on my own prototype for a pocket dimension, like pre-Humans had built. I am trying to replicate their technology but I still think I am missing something very crucial. And thirdly… we have discovered a dimension that is alive. One that wants to devour Riftworld. It can also open its own Rifts... Signal Space has a mission now.

<~Three Months Later~>

Aubrey could feel her eyes open once again. A new day was beginning. Moonlight was coming out the window, the only natural light she remembered. The tidy and clean room welcomed her, as she began to feel the still overwhelmingly comfortable mattress and blankets of her bed. The smooth almost too vivid pink-painted walls were always comforting to wake up in, the wood that she had concealed herself in for most of her past life gone, even if the smell of these walls would never change. 

Her room was still quite empty, as this time hadn’t been enough to actually decorate the place more. Yes, she had a small nightstand next to her bed with a working lamp that gave her a bit of light when she had to write something down or read some reports of the others. 

Yes, she had a carpet that was fluffier than her bed sheets - even though it was a lot harder to clean than anything else in this mess of a house they lived in. It was still a humble abode compared to the memories of the past, nonetheless here it still was the highest level of prestige in FarVoid… She hoped that would not be the case for long.

She stretched and yawned, wiping off some left off water from her somewhat tired eyes. The girl couldn’t really remember her dream, but it wasn’t a scary one. She had not gone to sleep early. It was because she, Adra and Polly were preparing a surprise for Kel, as well as a new tradition to keep the spirits of the townsfolk higher than ever before. 

A festival, a Campfire festival. It was on their list for a long time, as Mikhael and Mark were working on a new calendar and seasons system based on the three purple moons. She rolled off her bed with her crumpled but still clean and new pjs on.

Mark and Data were the first ones to notice the slightly different positions of the two smaller Shattered Moons about two months ago. They now knew that they spun around the bigger moon, before coming back to their „original” positions. It was the only somewhat useful discovery they had made - ignoring one other one - but it led them to ask even more questions they could not answer at this point in time.

Aubrey straightened her shirt and snatched her bat from under the bed. She huffed on it, getting rid of the bits of dust that had gathered on it during the night - well, what they considered as night. She calmly walked to the door, opened it and went to the closet. The sound of its door creaking and the sudden scent of freshly washed clothes was always a welcoming beginning of the day…. It would probably never get old for her. 

She went to her shelf, and grabbed her fit for today before coming back to her room and putting it on. She looked quite nice; a brown and thin leather jacket was put on a pink shirt with a white bunny on it, reminding her that she once had a bunny like it, and hair of that colour. She was wearing loose cyan jeans that felt more like sweatpants, they didn't have holes in them yet. Her sleek black shoes were somewhat clean, but a bit scratched.

Aubrey - still shocked by the fact that an apocalyptic wasteland had better living conditions than her past house - went to the clean bathroom, (leaving her bat in the corridor) and looked in the mirror, to see if her hair required some work before she could show herself to the others. 

It was not fine enough. After, the girl quickly searched through the half empty shelves and found a brush, she began brushing her hair… it was more of a mess after that one sleep than it had looked.

A couple of grunts later, the brush landed back inside the closed shelf. Her long brown hair looked slightly puffy after yesterday’s shower. Its length was not yet annoying as Polly was a lot better at cutting than she would tell anyone. She swiftly went back to her room, grabbed her grey cap from her nightstand as it hung on the lamp and put it on - protecting her hair from the falling ash.

The girl rushed downstairs, taking her bat from the corridor and making the steps of the stairs thud loudly. Kel and Mikhael were gone on a mission right now, and so Aubrey was the only one that could be coming from upstairs. Going down, she could hear the smell of something being cooked. 

It smelt like a weird tomato stew, as the tomatoes they had been harvesting for the past month now, were still something she was getting used to. The simplicity of the dish suggested that it was probably Adra cooking.

“Heyyyy…” She said in her sleepy voice, stepping downstairs as loudly as possible. She always served at the house’s last alarm clock. Not only was she able to wake everyone up, but most of the time she would be the last to get ready. Something no one - except Aubrey herself - was mad at. 

Adra was cooking in the kitchen. Her clean brown hair was tied into a ponytail; she was wearing a dark blue shirt and blue jeans. She also had a slightly used white apron tied to her.

“Hey Aubrey,” Polly welcomed the girl, she was drinking some hot drink… probably green tea. 

A small puff of smoke was leaving the liquid and floating upwards. Polly had shorter hair than Adra, about the length of Aubrey. It was let loose and slightly unkempt, as she always drank some hot beverage before actually starting her day. It woke her up more. She was also in her morning clothes. Both her shirt and long pants were dark green, looking as if she was wearing some kind of suit.

“Heya Polly,” Aubrey answered, landing on the ground and walking up to her. Normally there would also be Vance, Kel and Mikhael downstairs… all of them were on a double mission. Not only saving a couple more architects and scientists, but also testing the new fuel source they have found… the dust… Grimd. 

Aubrey smiled, and waited a bit before standing back up and looking over to see if she was right. In the somewhat large cooking pot, there was an orange-red stew. It looked good. Aubrey also looked at their fridge - trying to see if everything was ready for the show today.

While reading the large list of ticked off things, she decided to open the fridge, and grab a frozen sandwich from yesterday. It still was somewhat edible, and good enough for her to eat it. The sandwich was just bread and some of the tomatoes that they had harvested. 

They made for a very good sandwich filling, as they were ot only tasty, but also very watery inside. The lack of butter, or anything else, was not that noticeable that way. After finishing her quick meal, she snatched the list off of the fridge - almost making the magnets holding it fall down - and headed for the door.

“Where are you going off to Aubrey?” Adra asked, still concentrating on mixing the stew. Polly stood up with an empty mug of air in her hand and put it in the sink, ready for someone (probably future her) to wash. She went back to her room.

“I am going to double check everything, I want this day to be perfect,” She replied, holding onto the knob tightly. Adra smiled and chuckled a bit, before responding.

“Okay, okay… Just do not be too late! Cold stew is kind of- not that good,” Adra responded. Aubrey smiled back, and almost slammed the door open. The world outside, the city they were building up from the ash around, opened up to her once again. The black sky of the triple moons was still clear… she hoped it always would be.

FarVoid was not a city, but a tiny village that they had been working on for the past couple of months. Aubrey instantly saw two of the five people that were at the village right now, Walzer and… what was his name… Abyss. They were currently working on getting the first house done. 

Walzer, with his long and thin sheet of paper on a miscellaneous table, was still working out the ins and outs of the entire house. While Abyss - the one that was supposed to live there, was trying to build his tiny abode… the first real house.

The only thing they had built before was a somewhat big dock on the lake; it was more of a testing thing for Data’s new tools, but it worked. And now they would sit there watching their light show. The two friends had heard her footsteps, and too overworked and concentrated to answer, they waved at her. She waved back, smiling. 

The fresh air of this place, and the giant ocean of water always made this place feel like a weird twisted wonderland. She walked the pathway that was only different from the other places with its lack of grass.

She stepped into their temporary housing sector… or just a very makeshift neighbourhood made out of medium sized metal containers. They had created doors and given all of them as many things as they could, but plumbing work and electricity work required a lot more materials and expertise they were still collecting. Nonetheless, for now this small maze of five containers was enough… more than enough. 

Other people like Cease, Flore, Fork, Cooki and Dris were now alive and living. Reading, painting, writing, creating, researching, building. They were alive, their hearts were beating in this makeshift metal village. Even if it looked like a complete dumpster, this was the most that they could do right now. She hoped that the next bunch of people would help them quicken building this place. 

After not getting stuck in the only dead end of the entire place, she was finally next to the greenhouse. It was probably the second biggest difference, as they had completely renovated it with new shiny grass and some Grimd machinery created by Mark. Carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes and apples grew in that place. As they had tried to expand it and succeeded after a lot of shattered glass. One apple tree was worth it after all. 

The girl quickly took a turn and opened its door before quickly closing it. This place was also the warmest place in the entire camp. Sometimes Mikhael, Walzer, Cease or Flore would go and sit on the ground, reading a book or a comic in this quiet, flowery and warm place. 

That is why they made a bench, it would not hold three or more people (as it was destroyed once already) but there was no demand for more.  She sat down on the pillow that covered the plastic surface, and took a deep breath.

This place calmed her down, helped her in forgetting the things all of them had experienced four months ago. One third of the year without her friends, without her future, without what made Aubrey… Aubrey. She missed it, and she still felt water gather around the edges of her eyes. If she stayed with those memories for long enough, she would break down. All of that was now the past, and no matter how good all of them were at hiding it, the past lingered on.

She stood up, bending the bench a bit too much more than she would have liked, and opened her eyes. She wiped the rest of the tears off of her face and walked away back outside. The cold outside was something she shook off in moments. The girl with the bat closed the glass door and took a deep breath. 

The memories of the past getting blown into the ever-distant air. The past was still something that burned deep inside their hearts and souls, but ignoring it with this work and this world was the best thing they could do. She couldn’t become the depressed girl she was once again… not again…

She looked around her, to see the small place they had been slowly working on. All of them needed her, and she needed them to live and to survive. They were reliant on the fact that no one was willing to leave, and everyone was willing to help. Would something change if someone wanted to seize control? To fight and throw them out… could they get betrayed…

No, she thought, shaking her head. Everyone needed everyone else at this time. Thinking about the future so far would not help her. She believed all of them had to trust others, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to survive… living would be a far away dream in that alternate reality that didn’t happen. Aubrey took her bat and put it against her shoulder, hanging it a bit as she walked towards the largest metal container… the Lab.

The Lab was the biggest container, as the things happening in there - things she didn’t understand - were ones that needed a lot of space. It was also probably the most complex place in the entire village, as it required a long and… underground… pipe to the outside so that they could collect the falling ash and throw it into the lab when they needed it.

Aubrey knocked on the door, and it quickly opened with a very tired looking person staring straight at her eyes. Mark looked as if he was about to fall down and crack his head against the metal. The scientist was holding one of the glass jars he had asked for months ago. He straightened one of his many gold-looking glasses and actually noticed the fact that he had opened the door.

“Ah- wanted to check up on the fireworks?” He asked, quickly sprinting towards the light switch next to one of the stands. He pressed the makeshift buttons. 

A couple of tiny lamps above them lit up, they flickered for a bit before stopping. One of them wasn’t working already. 

The Lab was filled with many different makeshift or Mark’s gadgets, desks and shelves. All of it was focused on Grimd, the material that fell down from the sky constantly. Today would be the first use of it as an explosive… even if it was a more peaceful first public test than someone else would normally expect.

“You were working in the dark?” She asked, carefully following his quick and erratic steps, as he moved towards one of the emptier desks at the right edge of the container that lacked any windows. 

He slid the jar on the smooth surface of the previously polished wooden table. It stopped before touching the other jars with the same amount of contents perfectly. All of them were filled with the same amount of liquid or solid Grimd.

“Not working, just fell asleep-” He shrugged before getting disturbed by him falling down on the ground due to a tiny pool of Liquid Grimd. He shouted as loud as he possibly can - so not that loud - and pulled his boot out of the dark goop. 

He pulled himself up with his thin arms and looked around for another switch. This one was green and after clicking it on, a gang of ten fans started to spin in circles. Aubrey couldn’t smell the stench for long as the fans successfully got it out to the outside world. Aubrey hopped over the small slime that was on the floor, not even willing to ask him to clean it. 

“Can’t you not sleep in the lab please?” Aubrey requested him to take care of himself as much as he took care of every single glass jar in this container. 

He shrugged again, this time not falling down onto the metal he probably was sleeping on for more than half of his days now. She couldn’t believe that someone that is this smart could be the dumbest person in the whole city at the same time.

“Nope-” He replied with a bit of a delay, both of his eyes closing a little as he took one of his fluffy bags from the shelf. They had already walked in a circle around the place. “The Grimd is not going to discover itself.” He walked, not touching the flasks, tubes, bunsen burners, weights, microscopes, makeshift constructions, cylinders, crucibles, droppers and other chemistry related equipment that was probably harder to study than that useless periodic table.

“So, what are we doing?” She asked, kind of perplexed by jumping over the same pool of sticky slime the second time. Mark - looking like a walking corpse that was about to lose balance and fall - turned around to her and grinned in a way that didn’t make her feel comfortable at all.

“We are gonna test these,” He answered, holding a now filled up fluffy bag of different things. She didn’t even want to know what was inside, as she didn’t bother to stare at what he was probably throwing in there. “Thought u wanted to.”

~~~

Mark and Aubrey were walking through some of the grass they had cut around the giant pool of water. Most of the townsfolk treated cutting grass as a therapeutic time away from the stress of life… which it was. The only people that did not believe in that thesis was the scientist duo themselves, especially the tired one in front of him. 

They appreciated their public service, as they used this pool of water a lot, but they claimed that their tasks did not give time to relaxation… something no one believed in.

As they walked towards their destination, some birds were singing and bugs were flying around. The ground was not scary and the water was still; calm. The edge of the preview of this endless ocean was comforting and comfy, like the rest of this somewhat cold place. It calmed her down - nature itself. It was so much more beautiful than she had previously thought or seen. One month spent in a wasteland did its job…

Mark dropped the bag he was barely holding up, clanking of metal and glass was louder than the single thud that rang out of the bag once it collided with the dirt below. Mark began unpacking what he took. One looked like a weird version of a gun with a laser pointer, another one was a timer, and the rest were small grenades that looked a lot more threatening than they probably would be. She gulped, seeing how much weaponry he could create while being too tired to go back to his house and sleep.

“So, why did we go so far from-” Aubrey began to ask, Mark rolled his eyes and grabbed one of the grenades. He pulled out the metal lever up and then threw it as far as he could. The projectile flew into the air, upwards above the water. 

Aubrey, kind of scared of the thing, stepped behind Mark, using him as some kind of shield. The projectile exploded above the water, a large fiery boom quickly dissipated as some of the leftover Grimd was destroyed by the water below.

“I just wanted to test some different shapes. This one was just a random explosion, the next ones should have a somewhat rough pattern.” He replied, taking out another explosive from the fluffy bag. She opened her eyes wide and stepped back even more.

“You hadn’t tested these before?!” She kind of shouted, still in shock as another lever was pulled and then thrown somewhat far by the weak-looking scientist. This grenade exploded a bit faster, a star shaped fire was floating in the sky for a few seconds before it disappeared completely.

“Nope, where would I test them?” He asked, already taking two other ones, ready for a double shot. “I will be the one throwing them during the festival, so I have to get some practice.” Aubrey calmed down a bit, knowing that she wouldn’t be the one in danger throwing these things during the party she had created. It would be a nice change of pace for everyone, even the shut-in explorer of this weird science.

She sat down on the ground, listening and looking at the explosions that were happening above water. Stars, fire, moons, and a floating island. Those rough shapes would stay in the sky before merging with the transparent particles in the air. And even though they were loud, and maybe wouldn’t be as visible from the distance, she hoped that this light show would not be the last.

~~~

The Campfire festival would start at any time, as they waited for Kel and the rest of that gang to come back to town. Everyone was already on the additionally reinforced dock or close by. A place for the Rainbow Rock to start its colourful campfire was already in place, and the entire town (except Mark who was sleeping in the darkness). 

Adra and Polly were talking with each other. Flore, Cease, Abyss and Dris were playing a board game on the biggest table they had, it was too complicated for her to even understand what she was looking out. Some weird game about killing monsters and using cards and… yeah too much. Even if the graphics looked kind of nice.

Aubrey was walking in circles, her mind racing with different overcomplicated thoughts. Everything was going perfectly. Too perfect. What if Data was actually not that good at singing? What if the platform collapsed? What if Kel didn’t return? 

They had only one backup mini-truck and this wasn’t the time to go on the first search party…  The stress was returning to her, it felt like so much was on her shoulders. She didn’t know if she could handle it for another hour without smashing her weapon into something…

“Ugh…” she grunted, wondering why Data hadn’t finished getting those training dummies built. She could not hurt her gift to hit it against a tree, but one of the used up crowbars from the Lab or Cease’s house would work. Aubrey felt her heart rate fasten, as her steps lost their rhythm to her and…

“Aubrey!” She heard a familiar shout coming from one of the tables. She turned around to see Adra looking back at her and waving for her to come. 

Aubrey, with nothing more to do other than stress herself out, walked up to them and sat in between Polly and Adra. She put her bat against the wooden table, resulting in a very quiet thud. They could hear cheers of the four people playing behind them, probably winning or losing the game they were playing.

“Should I help you guys with something?” She asked, wondering about the different problems in her flawed perfect day.

“Nothing,” Adra replied, “You just looked stressed; relax a bit,” She smiled, and continued the conversation with Polly - who had nodded and agreed with her friend. Aubrey didn’t want to disturb them, and so she walked off with her cosmetic weapon in hand. 

Suddenly, she could hear a familiar and loud honk coming from the other side of the place. Aubrey sprinted as fast as possible to see if her ears were right.

She could see a couple of familiar people driving a bright red truck with a name graffitied onto it. “Wheels of Chaos” stopped by the old shack, similar to how they did it the first time, and every time. Aubrey saw a couple of people she had never seen at the back with Kel. In front was the driving duo, Vance and Mikhael.

Kel jumped out of the truck, leaving the people that were in awe to see their new home at their own pace. Kel kept his short brown hair, changing his fits to something more chaotic and colourful. His yellow sports shoes - one of many - didn’t pair well with the loose purple sweatpants he was wearing and his short-sleeved orange shirt. 

The only thing that was consistent - except himself - was a black and strong necklace with the Rainbow Rock slotted inside. He himself was also a bit more muscular than before they had come here, as sometimes saving people required more strength than stamina.

Vance and Mikhael left the front seats, ready to help the new people feel welcomed. Vance’s look hadn’t changed much - and by that she meant at all. He looked the exact same, even stealing the same types of clothes. On the other hand, Mikhael changed his favourite colour to purple and yellow, a combination of two opposites. 

He wore slick shoes, pants that looked like they were taken from a gardening shop (as he needed a lot of pockets to store his paint can somewhere), a loose short-sleeved shirt with a duck and some paint shots. He also was wearing a black cap on his head, covering his unkempt medium-length hair.

“Kel!” Aubrey shouted, happy to see him breathing. The rainbow rock sparkled in joy, shining a bit more… reacting to her voice. “I have to tell you something!”

~~~

“Uhm?” Data cleared his throat quietly, standing in front of the microphone he had just hooked up to the Grimd battery and a pair of speakers. His voice rang out of the speakers at least twice as loud. The entire village of FarVoid gathered up and focused on him, as they watched from the wooden platform. 

Data was staring at the ocean in front of him instead of the empty circle in the middle of him and the audience. Kel and Aubrey were sitting at the front table, with their closest friends. They looked happy, except Aubrey who was a bit tensed up.

Data nodded, giving the sign to Kel for whatever the surprise was. He was only supposed to sing anything that calmed him down and would be nice to listen to for everyone. The lack of instruments, or them not even asking what the song was, kind of made him question the entire thing, as it seemed like more of a public execution.

Kel took out the Rainbow Rock out of his secure amulet and waited for him to start singing. Eyes of the possibly only human society left focused on him, while he took a deep breath; looking at the dark sky above with three purple moons that were the only difference in its sombre state.

“ Colour coded just to keep me sane. My world is finally starting to take shape. I press the button and it bursts into life. This time, nothing will escape my sight. ” He began to sing, his gentle voice working well with the speakers. 

Kel threw the rock into the circle gently and the rainbow rock quickly turned into a giant campfire. It played the music of the song, all of the background sounds that he needed. The rainbow fire took everyone’s attention, as he was ready to sing the next lyrics.

“ I see the stars and the planets soon follow. Expect to have the universe by tomorrow. Just sit back and relax, don't worry. The world can wait, no need to hurry. “ Data continued as the rainbow flames grew into something very similar to a standard normal campfire. The loud sounds of the music calibrated to the volume of his voice, while the instruments playing danced with his voice and created the calming song he loved.

“ Getting harder to stay in control. But perfection is my only goal. Have to fight it cause I won't go back. I'd rather see the whole world go back to black. ” The song didn’t stop, it played itself. Data sang, his voice working perfectly in tune with the rest of the accompaniment of the fire before him. He didn’t really see the crowd, only shadows of them reflected by the colourful campfire. His stress vanished as the next lyrics came up.

“ But then I'm blinded by this light from nowhere. This blue planet with life and an atmosphere. I look closer and I can't believe. What I'm seeing down there, is me. ” This was the first time in a while that line didn’t make him cry. He couldn’t see if others realised what blue planet he was singing about. 

It still hurt him - even with this place that was awfully similar to it - that he couldn’t see his family and friends. That most of the people who he knew were dead and that this place was the safest place in this new world. He hoped that the next generation would remember Earth and would be told the tales of what it once was.

“ But if it's me looking down on me. The world above must also be. This could go on for infinity- ty- ty- ty ty… ” Data sang, not worrying about what he or the others thought. 

He trusted his voice and the campfire to continue burning. He trusted the fact that maybe they would be fine and that they were the survivors of humanity. He trusted the fact that there would be an end to their sadness and that they would be happy with what they had created at the end of their lives.

“ Colour coded just to keep me sane. My world is finally starting to take shape. I press the button and it bursts into life. This time, nothing will escape my sight. ” The first lyrics were always the first, the world would continue without them and go onto infinity. 

Their lives would end, humanity would end one day… and that day had come and destroyed them. Humans are now different, they are not themselves anymore. They are the next people, the next generation, the next humanity. That thought made him cry a little, he hoped no one would hear him get so emotional. But, maybe the others also felt his words as much as his… maybe they also cried - remembering and remembrance the only things left… acceptance that the world-

“ I see the stars and the planets soon follow. Expect to have the universe by tomorrow. Just sit back and relax, don't worry. The world can wait, no need to hurry. ” The last lyrics were played by the campfire, and sung by Data. 

The campfire shrunk a little, leaving Data to be seen by the crowd. They cheered on. Most were clapping, some of them cleaning their eyes. Each of them was smiling and happy. They would survive, they would live, they would continue what Humans were best at. He smiled as well.

And as the song finished, and Data sat next to Walzer and Cease, an explosion rang out from the other side… the ocean. Flames in the shape of a star were in the air above the water before they quickly disappeared. Another explosion - a rough image of a fire. The next one, a speeding truck resembling Vance’s mini-truck. After that, an image of floating islands. The last pattern appeared - the one of the three shattered moons - and people cheered on.

Aubrey sighed, happy to see that it was - in fact - a perfect day.

~~~

“So… you organised everything?!” Kel asked loudly, closing the door of the fridge with a bit too much power. 

Aubrey was drinking tea, while Adra was making herself some coffee. She had just woken up from the party that ensued during the festival… It was in fact 5am and both of the teens hadn’t even touched their beds.

“Y- yeah-” Aubrey stuttered and took another sip of her tea, “Did you like it?”

“It was the best thing ever!” He shouted again, even louder than before. He was holding a bottle of Orange Joe. His rainbow necklace was shining faintly, not wanting to kill Aubrey’s and Adra’s eyes. It swang in the air as he sat down on one of the chairs. “We should do it more, I think everyone enjoyed it.

“Mhm…” She agreed, too tired to respond to any more questions. 

She already wanted to leave and go to bed with her red eyes but there were two sips of warm tea left and she wouldn’t let it waste. Kel opened the glass bottle and continued to fuel the fire of orange addiction that was still unchanged after all this time.

Suddenly, a sharp sound rang out from the floor above. Then white noise played, as if someone hadn't stopped the radio. Everyone in the house woke up, as the sound got louder and louder. Aubrey opened her eyes wide and rushed with Kel upstairs. In the corridor, in front of them, there was a green hologram…?

A green-lime and very rough image of someone standing in front of them was playing, noises and incomprehensible human talking were coming out of the image. Aubrey got closer to it, not recognising who the hell that was. There was something familiar about them, but she didn’t know what yet… until he spoke.

“Hello? Does this work?” A voice of a long-lost friend spoke from the image, as its roughness suddenly disappeared and she saw him standing on the other side. 

The background was chaotic, and it seemed that there were people behind him. Kel’s eyes were wide open as well, as he tried to touch the image but instead went through it. Polly sobbed from the back, realising who was talking. Adra - confused - stood by Aubrey.

“Well, you can’t respond- Well then… I would like to introduce myself first… I am Basil.”

~~~

“And that is when we… quickly packed and began going to the Gem Tree where Basil, Mincy and Cris were…” Aubrey continued talking, as Sunny felt his muscles tense up.

His rainbow eye began glowing brighter. He could feel the blood flowing in his arms faster than before, his heart running as the boy hit the tree as hard as he possibly could and-

It didn’t even crack.

A couple pink leaves fell down, ones that would soon regrow.

He could feel a hand touch his shoulder, lightly. A deep breath or two later, with his back still turned to a frightened Hero and a surprisingly calm Aubrey, Sunny sat down in front of the trunk of the tree he had created.

Sunny focused, feeling his mind glimmer and his hands feel this alien force that still lingered in the back of whoever he was right now. He could feel himself weakening a bit, while the tree grew a couple more leaves… and maybe a root or two…

“Are you sure you want to hear this? You… had seen it all from this point on.” Aubrey asked, in a voice that begged to calm him down.

“I don’t know.” He replied, and his rainbow eye calming down, completely covered by the eye patch.

Before they could beg him, once more, to stay with them. That it will be alright and that they appreciate his existence. That it was worth it all. That this was worth the cost…

He ran away, not even realising that he did return to the pier…

Sunny bit his tongue, trying to feel a bit of blood flow down into his throat, so that he could taste that regret again.

His hands were shaking… his eye glanced at the giant pool of water. Sunny turned his head towards FarVoid, the city that needed him the most… the only reason he was here in actuality.

And he couldn’t do that.

What a pity.

…

His eye looked at the water again, at the liquid that gave them life and hope. A force of nature that stayed between worlds…

Sunny scooched over to the edge of the wooden structure, and leaned down to the water, holding himself up with his other hand. The structure itself wasn’t even reacting to his existence, even if he could destroy it in one swoop… well maybe…

The boy, with tears flowing out of his only eye, grasped as much water as he could. Weirdly enough, in his fist of water, there was something… hard.

Still crying his heart out to the world, under the spinning nebula, he opened it up… half of the water already dripping down onto his tears and the pond below.

A perfectly smooth rock was sitting in the centre of his hand.

<~~~>

Entry 596 - Hello, this is Prin writing here. Today I took Cyzor for a fighting training, and we almost broke the place down. His powers are far more dangerous and uncontrollable than I thought, something that I see as a positive though. It may help us discover a section of Gems that do not grow on Gem Trees, and in fact can be created by us! For now we have to fix up the place, before Ceropia comes back from the mission and gets suspicious.

Chapter Text

Entry 893 - Hello, this is Prin writing here. Today was the most stressful day of my life. Ceropia asked me if she could see Cyzor’s final test, and he passed it with flying colours. Even being able to fight Ceropia’s student with ease and winning. What only I noticed - and Cyzor of course - was the fact that he used his powers for a split second. We were lucky today. We may not be lucky from this point on, as Cyzor is on track to replace me or even taking Ceropia’s spot when she dies. He may become the next leader of Signal Space. We just have to keep everything secret.

<~Four Months Later~>

#10 - A photo of me and Charles walking back home with Kim. Today was a tough day. Thanks Merlin for making the photo!

The Lookout Spot.

The tallest place in the UnderCity. Kim could see the entire place from this one spot. The houses on the sides that were being repopulated, the skyscrapers that were beginning to get put down, their remains used to repair what was left of the city.

People were… smiling. Hanging out in the park, playing by the artificial ponds, working and dining in the only restaurant in town. Driving for food and adventures, and just… living.

This feeling, that she could live again, was beginning to return.

Her hands against the metal fence, purple bracelet with a pure purple Gem embroidered into it on her right hand. It was a very nice gift from both Charles and Hero. She smiled with the people below, her eyes shining as bright as the spinning rainbow storm above them.

A couple of the emptier spots in the city, that weren’t covered by rubble, were used for the first farming areas in the area. With the recent technological developments that allowed them to create mud from a mixture of the dust, the concrete and water, as well as the discovery of using the blood of the creatures to fasten the growth speed, helped them somewhat survive.

The centre of the city was hailed as the Market Square, everyone using their own skills and passions to help others deal with life in this place. It was almost always busy, especially at these times.

Cars were coming in and out of the town, as people got rescued and helped, a couple even didn’t understand English. The population was effectively growing.

The hospital was bustling, the market was living, the world was not as grey as before. Even a couple trees were beginning to grow somewhat quickly.

Her breathing calm, for once in her life again.

The city would live, humanity would thrive, it would survive.

Even if they didn’t know that Charles knew of a way to save the world and repair it back to its initial state… they would live.

That thought.

That single thought that they will leave this place soon, was growing and festering in the back of her mind since the day they dealt with those monsters.

And now, she felt she was ready to say goodbye. Although four months have passed, this place had never felt like home, not like the one she longed for… It wasn’t Faraway.

Kim stared at the Gem Bracelet, her own glasses and hair visible in its reflection.

Today was the day that she would finally break the ice.

The girl smirked, and jumped off the tower. Her hand in the Gem bag, the other activating the bracelet. A chained scimitar, one she was already too familiar with, formed in her hand and close to falling, she threw it into the building behind her, decelerating her fall a bit.

She landed on her two legs, perfectly taking the fall and focusing on the weapon just enough for the gem pieces to return to their place inside the bag.

“Thank you,” She whispered to the city, the skyscrapers towering over her.

~~~

#17 - A photo of Kim finally winning a game of Chess against Henry, we will remember this achievement till time ends! Hehe… this feels nice.

“This is the surprise?” Charles asked, standing in front of Bakeden, the first restaurant in the city.

Hero, looking somewhat giddy, opened the door and entered the comfy locale first. It reminded him of home, the light orange walls covered by pictures of all types of bread, as well as some more sweet and sugary things. All of them could be ordered and baked right on the spot. Piano was playing from the corner, some of its keys still not fully tuned properly.

The LED lights on the top, shining a comforting hue that was the perfect amount of yellow. The chairs and tables were large, and comfortable, made specifically for this place by a couple of the woodworkers that were busy making furniture in exchange for other goods.

Hero and Charles sat by the table closest to the entrance, as it was cleaned and empty. The window from the outside was… nice. The view of the city was not as saddening as it would have been months ago.

Charles sat down in front of Hero, sitting on the couch. His eyes were wandering, looking there and back, as if confused by what they were seeing. As the servers gave the menu, which was quite small but still very impressive, Charles took it and read…

“What is this place?” He finally asked, people bantering and eating in the background, the smell of the bakery overwhelming his sense and hungering his mind. Charles took a deep breath just to imagine himself tasting the food.

“A restaurant?” Hero glanced at him, mostly reading the menu, “You know what that is… right?”

Charles rolled his eyes, answering the question. Putting both of his hands on the table, he got a bit closer to Henry while looking at the people around them.

“I am not… human, at least not the same as you guys.” The 18 year old whispered, “Also… I don’t know.”

“You buy food, and eat it here.” Hero shrugged, inspecting his friend’s body and not seeing a real difference compared to them. If he had some medical equipment maybe he could-

Charles took the Menu and began flipping from dish to dish; garlic bread, bread, baguettes, sandwiches, snacks, bread sweets, sweet breads, sweet buns, a lot of buns…

“A lot of options…” Charles said to himself, analysing not only what would taste the best, but also how these things were even created and… why.

He thought it was somewhat beautiful that these humans still valued preference… especially in food. 

A waiter came up to them, and quickly got their order. He quickly scurried away, leaving the two of them alone.

“What are we paying with?” Charles questioned, his mind focused on the images and drawings hanging on the walls.

“I helped them with some of the recipes.” Hero smiled, “So when I told them that you will be coming with me, they said that they will make us something delicious.”

“Mhm..” Charles relaxed, his mind wandering in directions even he couldn’t predict…

“I also have something… I wanted to talk about,” Henry spoke, calmly with a twinge of regret, as if he already knew what reaction Charles would have. “When are we… leaving?”

“Leaving?” The one in front of him jumped in his seat a little, answering with a voice crack.

“You know,” Hero continued, “You said there is a plan or something we can do to revert the world back to normal. We have spent 4 months in this city and as much as I have got used to this place… but there is an entire world to save.”

“I understand.” Charles spoke with a tone eerily calm, his eyes looking down at the empty table. “There is a plan, I will tell you guys when I am ready. It… it requires losing something I do not want to lose.”

He looked at his belt. The tool with the rainbow needle, still pointing forward… no matter where he stood.

~~~

#23 - A photo of Charles talking to a couple of the townsfolk, he is blushing! He seems happy in this photo, smiling…

Knock! Knock!

“Come on in!” Kim welcomed, the door opening.

Kim was currently on her bed, her hand in the Gem bag. She loosened her grip on the dust, and waved hello. Hero entered the room, noticing the large quantities of tiny rainbow dust on the floor, bed, desk, chair and even the lamp that was hanging from the roof.

“Are you sure you should practise inside?” Hero questioned her life decisions, to which she responded with a simple shrug.

“You have a problem with that, old man?” She smiled, staring at the mess she had made with satisfaction.

“It is your room, after all,” He ruffled his hair, “I have something I want to… talk about.”

The change in his tone, as well as the pause, changed Kim’s mood. She pushed her glasses up her nose and glanced at his eyes.

“What about…?” Kim asked.

“I miss everyone, Kim,” Hero sat down on the floor, beside the colourful sparkles, “I want to go home, I know you want to go home as well, back to Faraway.”

Kim’s eyes moved towards the floor, a couple of water drops tainting her bedsheets.

“These months with you and Charles have been great, don’t get me wrong… It has been amazing actually but… this doesn’t…”

“Feel right.” Kim finished his sentence. Her watering eyes opened and tried to see eye to eye.

Henry was looking right back, with the same expression. She gripped onto the bed sheets, latching onto them.

“I will go for Charles,” Kim stated blankly, jumping off the bed instantly and rushing out of the room. Her nails were digging into her hand.

Henry stayed on the floor for a while, playing with the rainbow dust.

~~~

#41 - A photo of Hero and Charles talking on the Lookout Spot. The view of the Nebula is beautiful here. They are talking about the new discovery about the dust turning into liquid… or something? I don’t care to be honest.

The Chess set. The game had ended. 

The final move had been played a long time ago, and now the board was closed shut. They hadn’t played in a while, as going outside and spending time with the rest of the community of the so-called Undercity was more fun. Remnants of what was once Nearby City, a giant turned into something smaller.

Hero - still cleaning his two eyes from their tears - sat down on the chair in front of the set, and opened it. All the pieces were in their place, fully shown, and fully visible to everyone involved. Every piece except… one.

A pawn.

The most important piece in Chess, if one were to think about it. It is meant to defend all the other pieces, yet it is the entire structure of the attack. WIthout pawns, not only can you not get your pieces back, you are also unable to keep the walls that hide your more important pieces.

One pawn doesn’t seem like such a loss, but it means you weakened not only your position, but every other piece on the board, making them more vulnerable.

Is it weird to believe that the least important puzzle piece is that important? It is still completing the entire whole, without it, everything can break down.

Hero didn’t think about his chess strategies for any longer, as he closed the set again, hoping that he would play with Kim or Charles soon.

Next to the set, there was something that they had recently been using far more. The Photo Album.

A shameless copy of Basil’s one, another reminder not only of his past with Mari and his younger siblings, but also Faraway in general. He even kept the structure the same, wanting it to remind him of the home that he wanted to come back to.

This want was unbearable at times, and today was one of those days. Especially after Charles ignored his question.

He looked through the photos, the times they had spent together…

One was missing.

Photo 71.

Hero read the description, and was confused. Why would it be gone?

His first instinct was to look for it around the room, but it wasn’t there. Not on the shelves, the floor, the table or carpet. He checked the rest of the album, flipping through the empty pages, it didn’t move.

His next thought was well, maybe someone took it.

Only he, Kim and Charles knew about this album, and well it was important to all of them.

Kim just left, in a rush as well, so she probably didn’t take the photo.

Charles… why would he…

Hero’s eyes opened wide, as a single bad thought took over his mind.

Oh no.

That couldn’t be right.

~~~

#57 - A photo of Charles teaching Kim about the Gems. The photo is taken right before impact, as Kim is about to hit the floor because of her Scimitars. They look really cool, although they are surprisingly sharp and very dangerous.

“Huff… you better be here… ” Kim took the final gasp, landing onto the metal floor of their favourite spot in this weird moody world.

The Lookout Spot was as empty as it normally was, as if it was waiting for a visitor. Charles wasn’t here. Only the dust, the city below, the nebula above. It was truly beautiful, almost making her regret the fact that she wanted to come back home. She would never see its rainbow colours circling the dark eye in the middle.

Since picking up the Gems, she felt even more connected to it than before.

She looked around again, trying to find the silhouette of Charles from the top of this place. And well, not to anyone’s surprise, Kim couldn’t.

Her dirty glasses certainly didn’t help her, as they constantly got dusty from all the dust falling onto them.

Kim - still feeling too tired to walk or to breathe properly - sat down on the cold metal floor that gave her the same amount of comfort as those picnics back in Faraway.

This place felt like it was theirs. Her’s, Charles’, Henry’s. It was their hidden spot in the world. Where they could just rest and alienate themselves from the world below.

sigh….

But… She had to find Charles. Find Charles.

Her hand in the Gem Bag, she took out a pair of binoculars similar to his, and began searching more thoroughly. Every street, every window, every…

Why was he there?

~~~

Sunny was getting bored inside his paradise. Even with the ability to summon anything he wanted to, the fact that he couldn’t feel physical pain didn’t help his stay. The rainbow place he was in, stopped hurting his eyes long ago, especially with the glasses he was wearing.

The comfiest couch-bed, the best TV he could imagine, and even a special giant pinboard so that he could map everything. Every single piece of this puzzle.

Why was he here?

Why were there in this weird place?

Who was behind it all?

He ate popcorn, looking at the three of them approaching each other once more. He hoped that Charles spilled a bit more information because it hasn’t been a long time since any major discoveries about everything… basically.

Charles himself was also somewhat weird.

He fit in the group, and looked quite happy to be with them, but it was clear that he was hiding something. Especially with the plan to fix the world and bring it back to its old state.

Maybe that would cause him to die.

No matter what and where Sunny was, his two perfectly healthy eyes were staring at the TV screen. Normally he used it to watch Aubrey or Kel or… his mom….

But well, today was special. Maybe today, Charles would say something.

<~~~>

Entry 1344 - Hello, I have no time to write. Ceropia discovered what Cyzor can do. I have to help.

<~~~>

#71 - A photo of us three… smiling, resting, in the city centre… Looking at the nebula. Thank you, Henry and Kim.

“I am sorry,” Charles felt tears fall off his eyes, as he stared at the place where he came from. Those broken islands, where he jumped with them for the first time…

It… it felt weirdly right, to be the one leaving. He didn’t deserve these months, these interactions, this happiness that began growing inside.

His boots were already on, they were a bit too small. Their purple shine activated once more, as he took a step back and-

A photo fell out of his pocket and drifted onto the floor, the one of his friends and himself… smiling and resting.

“Charles…?” A familiar voice, the one that calmed him down and brought him the thing he regretted.

“What are you doing?” The friend figure that… was too similar to someone he had respected a long time ago…

Ș̷̔H̷̛͇Ȇ̷̩ ̶̥̐F̶̬͝Ǔ̶̞C̷͝ͅḰ̶̰Ī̶̜N̴̫͂G̵͉̋ ̶̤͝L̷̼̕O̷͍̐V̶͔́È̴̲D̴̙̑ ̴̮̈Y̸̰̏Ô̴͉Ù̴̳!̶̿ͅ ̷͍̑Ş̴͊H̸̹̐E̵͍̅ ̵̨͘L̵͕̓Ó̵̰V̴̥̎Ẹ̵͝D̵͕͊ ̷̲̅U̷̼͒S̸̗͘ ̵̼̾Ḁ̴̎L̵͖͆L̸̗̈!̶̖̏

“I am leaving.” His voice was still emotionless, he couldn’t make himself feel. Not now. Please…

T̴̯̊h̶̺͐e̶͕͊y̴̡̆ ̶̜̋w̶͚̐ē̶̩r̴͈̍ȇ̷̢ ̶̰̓g̸̯̈́ọ̵̊n̶̰̒e̷̹̊.̶̹̂ ̸̛͜t̵̓͜h̵̰͐e̷̥̐y̵̐͜ ̴̫̈́l̶̮̎ê̶̹f̵͚̐t̸̨̒…̵̪̐ ̴̱͘e̴̪̓v̵͈̉e̸̟͘r̶͔̆y̴͔͋o̷̱͝ṅ̶̬e̴̜̕ ̶̣͘a̶̞̾l̷͕͂ŵ̶̙ǎ̵̧y̴͇͘s̶̜̏ ̵̦͑d̵̫̆ḯ̵͇d̴̝̆…̷̨͐

“Why?!” Anger causing her voice to louden… Charles wanted to close his ears just so- “Are we not ready?!”

please… kim… this is not because of you…

“Charles, we can leave this place if it means helping our friends.” Hero explained, trying to speak calmer, even if Charles could hear the resistance in his voice, it wasn’t fully… real. “We can go with you.”

i made my mind up. please… stop… i… i… can’t do this…

“Charles?” Kim’s voice softened… why did it… “Are you crying?”

leave me alone… please…

“Charles, please come towards us.” Hero’s voice was quivering, he himself froze. “You are- too- the edge- close-”

Henry… you are breaking… is it… is it me…?

…

A single clear thought… the one which began it all…

“This is your mission, if you fail this one… you won’t get another chance. Do you understand?”

Charles shouted.

Shouted. His legs gave up.

Shouted. His arms punching the ground.

Shouted. Blood trickling down.

Shouted. His gunshot wound was slowly opening up.

Shouted! His tears falling into the void.

Shouted! His head on the ground, his hands covering his face in blood.

…

…

…it hit like a truck…

…

…

…but it was so expected…

…

…

…that this was the truth…

…

…Henry and Kim heard it, there was no taking this back…

…

…

“THERE IS NO PLAN!”

Chapter Text

An update.