Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Only about twenty more minutes until lunch.. 

Elaina sighed, taking out her book and beginning to read. Hopefully, Madame wouldn’t call on her, but she doubted it, since she’s been rambling about test answers and stuff for a while now. 

But the whole class seemed to have been bored out of their minds, including the person who sat in front of Elaina (a goofy ahh kid named Korben), because he threw his head back as he yawned, stretching his arms out as if he’s awaking from a deep, decade-long slumber. 

Elaina felt a light force against her face, then through her nose. Ew- did she just inhale some of Korben’s ginger hair?!?? Disgusting! 

Oh well, she had bigger things to worry about, like the work Madame had started assigning despite how close it was to lunch. Colourful spots danced across her vision as she zoned out on the lesson. Whoops. She had no idea how that happened. 

Yada yada yada, something about decimals and division and placement or whatever- Elaina couldn’t pay attention, and no one else seemed to be either. Until…

!!URGENT ALERT!!  !!URGENT ALERT!! THERE HAVE BEEN AN UPRISING WITH THE VITA CARNIS CREATURES GOING  HOSTILE. STAY INDOORS,  DO NOT CONSUME ANYTHING THAT HAS CRAWL BASED INGREDIENTS  AND REMEMBER WHAT TO DO DURING MIMIC ATTACKS FOR THE MATTER OF YOUR OWN SAFETY. STAY CALM AND WAIT UNTIL FURTHER GOVERNMENT INSTRUCTIONS

The warning read, followed by a loud blaring sound that will totally not break the eardrums of everyone within a 69 kilometre radius.

The class went silent, which was weird because it was never quiet in class. Then, everyone erupted with panic. Okay, that was something Elaina was more used to. She looked around the class. Madame was trying to shut everyone up, despite being terrified herself. Elaina looked in front of her. There, Korben sat, deathly still. 

Korben never sits still. 

“You alright..?” Elaina asked, even though whispering could barely be heard in such a loud room. By then, Madame had used her authoritative teacher voice to get everyone to shut up, and was now trying to reassure everyone about the whole uprising and what she’s been assigned to do with them. 

Elaina only barely heard about ‘staying calm’ and ‘protecting themselves like how they’ve practiced in the mimic attack drills’ when Korben began to stir. He started breathing really rapidly, as if in some really intense Fortnite game or something. Then he started gagging and held his arms over his chest, like he was having cramps. 

At this point, everyone was concerned over Korben. Everyone knew that Korben was a crawl addict, ever since it got deemed an edible food item, and before (don’t question it). Now that the warning had instructed specifically not to consume anything crawl-based, Korben was pretty much doomed. 

He gagged again before fully turning over to his side and puked on the floor. Poor Grace right beside him had to jump out of her seat to avoid getting ginger barf on her vibrant crocs. The class filled the room with ‘ohs’ and ‘ews’ until they saw that Korben’s puke wasn’t regular puke. 

It was blood. Full ass chunks of blood. 

“Weird, that didn’t happen last time I puked.” Korben said all sarcastically before puking more out. 

Grace belted a scream and the class followed right after her. Elaina stared dumb-founded at the whole situation in front of her. A vita carnis uprising, followed by her friend barfing up blood? Not her ideal Wednesday but okay.

Then, Korben started to stir, and started… growling? Holy shit he’s a furry now? Elaina doesn’t really mind furries (as long as they didn’t do weird shit or anything) but now is a weird time to embrace it. His pupils dilated, making him look like he’s been on drugs for the past five minutes. Elaina could have sworn his veins started becoming a bit too visible, and his skin got as red as his hair, like how it would when he was playing trumpet, but this time it wasn’t funny. 

Kids backed away from him out of fear, Elaina no exception. Korben was being a lot weirder than he usually was. The only one willing to not back away from fear was Fries. Being that too-nice-for-this-shit, they cautiously stepped towards Korben.

“Korben..?” They whispered to a Korben who probably has rabies.

Without another word, Korben snapped his head around to face the class, but it wasn’t the Korben everyone knew anymore. He looked ballistic and ready to tear apart anything in his way. To put it short, he looked like a mimic. How is that possible? For all Elaina knows, people don’t just turn into mimics- that’s just insane! But, then.. What’s happening to Korben? 

Suddenly, Korben pounced onto the nearest kid in sight, Josh. Everyone panicked; even Madame didn’t know what to do. Everyone was so stunned, they didn’t even know what to do. Josh was screaming, trying to get Korben to stop whatever he was doing. Elaina recognized what Korben was doing as they described mimic attacks. Trying to get you when you’re most vulnerable, and then going for your guts… Oh God. 

No one knew what to do, and even if they did remember how to react during a mimic attack, they weren’t doing anything out of horror. 

Josh’s screams became unbearably loud and pain-stricken, that no one could watch anymore. It was terrible. Finally, the screams came to a stop and were replaced with munching. Elaina knew Korben as a messy eater but damn , somehow morphing into a mimic exaggerated that fact. Blood was everywhere and Korben had a wild, animalistic look in his enlarged eyes. Spooky shit.

He threw Josh’s limp and bloodied body on the ground, and stared at the traumatized group that were his classmates. Madame had now positioned herself in front of the forming crowd, as if that’ll shield them from anything they didn’t see. It was now silent from the sheer image of what they witnessed. 

The next part was hazy, Elaina barely understood what was going on. She only remembers even more bloodshed, screaming, and other things that would have been rated 18+ if it were a movie. Before she knew it, she was getting dragged along by Tolu out of the classroom and into the halls. Piper and Xavier were close behind, followed by Fries pulling Harris along, and telling him to cover his ears or something. Xavier was so gonna complain about bringing him later. 

After a bit of random yet panicked wandering, everyone crowded inside of the gender neutral bathroom. Once they forced the door shut and locked it as fast as possible, everyone gathered their composure. 

Fries sank to the ground. “We just- that- Korben.. Oh god ..” They said, panic rising in their voice as they clung their necklace so tight that Elaina thought it might snap. 

“We don’t have time to think about that.” Piper scolded, but she was definitely just as shaken up as they were. “We have to- we have to figure out a plan. We need to survive.” 

“What about my kids!” Fries gasped, and held their hands to their mouth as they stared at the ground, horrified. “We can’t just-” 

“We’re gonna have to just assume they’re okay.” Harris sighed right beside them, but that wasn’t enough for Fries, because they just went silent, something they did when stressed, scared, or both; with the situation at hand, probably both. 

“Okay, guys, seriously. We have to take this seriously. Our lives could be on the line-” Tolu started, before being interrupted by a loud banging on the door. Fries, Piper and  Xavier yelped, Harris flinched but shielded Fries, Tolu swore, and Elaina was too busy trying to figure out why she felt like she had a stomach ache. Eh, probably the mounds of cocaine she consumed earlier. 

No one moved, and the knocking became louder. Then, a voice called out: “Guys??” 

Macy’s voice. 

Fries glanced back at everyone before shakily standing up and opening the door slightly. They peeked through a small crack they opened up and relief flushed over them when they were met with Macy’s face instead of a flesh-hungry mimic. 

They cautiously opened the door and was surprised when Macy, Kaela and their kids flooded inside the small bathroom. Once they were sure everyone was in, they shut the door and locked it immediately. 

“Why’d you guys run so damn  fast?! I saw you from the other end of the hall and tried to get to you!!” Macy complained as everyone took the newcomers’ presence in. Usually, if everyone was crowded together like this, it’d be noisy, but it wasn’t. Thank god for that. 

“Macy, that was you yelling??” Xavier blinked. They must have heard Macy’s cries but ignored it or passed it off as nothing. 

“I thought that was one of our classmates begging for us to take them with us.” Piper shrugged, but earned a small chuckle from that. 

“Wait- are you guys like- not affected by what just happened??” Fries questioned, shooting everyone a worried look as they usually did. “Like- that was actually terrifying! Do you not care about our classmates getting eaten alive?!” 

“No.” Everyone said at the same time, and Fries just stared at everyone in disbelief. “I would watch it again.” Piper commented, and Fries snapped their head towards her with a horrified expression on their face. 

“Anyways..” Tolu continued. “We need to take this seriously now. First off, we need to plan. We need a place to stay.” Then everyone started arguing about whose house they were gonna go to. Fries sank back on the floor beside Harris and checked up on him, probably about his headaches. Elaina couldn’t tell because of the noise. 

“Guys!” Xavier yelled, getting everyone’s attention. Thankfully, it worked. “How about we go to whoever’s house is closest, which would be mine-” 

“Or Harris’!” Fries commented, but Xavier continued like they didn’t say anything. 

“-and then from there, we can decide whoever house is the safest.” 

“Oh, yeah, of course you want us to go to your house first, Xavier.” Tolu scoffed. “Why not my house?! It’s probably even safer, since it’s stronger and bigger!” She argued. 

“Well, Tolu,” Xavier started. “We need to get supplies and other stuff first- and quickly. We can’t just walk to your house without weapons! That’s suicide.” 

“We can walk quickly!” Tolu retorted. “Seriously, why can’t you guys just do what I want to for once?!” 

“Tolu, it’s not that. We just need to stop at whoever’s house is the closest to get supplies, then we can go to your house if we need to.” Piper said, relatively calmly, which was a surprise to hear from her. “We’re not going to stay at Xavier’s forever. It’s only temporary.” 

By now, some of the kids inside the bathroom were whispering amongst themselves, probably about what they thought of doing, but they didn’t share. 

“‘If we need to’?! So we’re still not going to be going to my house?” Tolu snapped. 

“Tolu, you know it’s not like that.” Kaela comforted. Thank god that Tolu listened to her daughter. 

She sighed. “Okay, fine.” She grumbled. “But… now what?”     

“Should we start walking to Xavier’s?” Elaina suggested, surprising herself with the fact that she can still speak and do something other than stand there awkwardly. 

“Maybe not yet..” Tega (one of Fries’ many kids)  hummed. “Maybe we should like- I don’t know… wait for the meat hungry meat monsters to leave??” He said sarcastically, followed by an eye roll. Well, at least that lightened the mood a bit. 

“Wait, let me write down everyone’s name so I know we have everyone and if we need to take attendance later.” Fries announced, pulling out the mini notebook they always  kept in the back pocket of their cargo pants, along with a pen from another pocket. They looked around and scribbled everyone’s names down. As they did that, everyone started planning what they’re gonna do, comforting each other, or processing what the fuck is actually going on. 

“This… this is real..” James (another one of Fries’ kids) muttered, his voice quivering. 

Xavier walked towards him and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry so hard, we’ll get out of this.”

Chapter Text

I peeked through the small crack we opened up in the bathroom. The halls were empty, minus the blood splattered on the ground, along with other stuff that I don’t think I should talk about. 

Behind me, my friends argued over if they should let me and Elaina really go out. 

“I’m just not sure if two would be enough!” Fries had said, emotion creeping into their voice.

“Fries- we don’t have a choice,” Xavier replied, using a comforting yet authoritative voice to get his- their point across. “Two people would be enough! We need this to go by quickly, so two people should be okay.” 

“But what if one of them gets hurt?!”

“Fries- that won’t happen.” Tolu sighed, not bothering to sound as reassuring as Xavier was trying to be. I guessed she was still bitter about the last ordeal. I would have argued with her more, but I wasn’t in the mood at the moment. 

“Piper and Elaina can handle themselves just fine.” Harris added and Fries paused at their malewife’s words.

“As much as I hate Harris, he’s right, Freiah.” I sighed, but threw on a smile for them anyway. “We’ll be fine. You go worry about your kids, we’ll come back in one piece, I promise.” Truth be told, I didn’t like most of Fries’ kids very much. I like Fries, don’t get me wrong, but their kids are a very different breed. Geez, they left their kids alone in Macneil for one year and then they come out animals- it’s wild. 

Fries shot me a concerned look, then Elaina, then their kids before staring at the ground. That’s how you know they were really thinking this over. Then I wondered why we needed Freiah’s permission to leave- I mean, it wasn’t like they would break your wrists if you didn’t follow what they said. 

I didn’t need to dwell on it for longer, because they finally sighed and looked between me and Elaina, who awkwardly stood still. “Alright- just come back okay, alright?” They said softly, walking over to us. They stood right in front of me as I nodded, Elaina glanced over and did the same. 

“I’ll make it to your wedding, don’t worry.” I teased, rolling my eyes. I wished this whole thing could be a lot less serious than it was. Me and Elaina were just gonna get supplies and weapons for us, not going to war! Yes, it’s a bit dangerous, but it’s not a big deal! I hoped Fries wouldn’t make this harder than it was. 

“I’m already married, but okay” They chuckled quietly. They shot me a sweet smile and I choked back my words. 

Elaina must have not read what was going on between us, because she just announced we were going and chucked the door open, headed out, then latched onto my arm. Holy shit- that hurted like hell!?? I knew Elaina was strong as fuck (she can easily pick me up without a second thought) but I didn’t know her fingers could penetrate into skin like that?? Oh whatever- no time to think about it, since we were outside of the bathroom now, overlooking the halls that led to the bus doors entrance to the office and part of our school that held our grade. 

I looked around. It was similar to what I've seen from inside of the bathroom through a crack in the door: blood stained the ground, but the light outside was bright and welcoming.  It was tempting to just run away, but I couldn’t just abandon my friends like that. I’m not that cruel. 

With a sigh, I cautiously checked the hallway that led straight to our classroom. The door of the bathroom was now shut, probably by Tolu. I bet she would have loved to watch me die. Too bad she was going to have to stay inside a contained box along with a couple of delinquents instead. 

Elaina was a lot more bold than I was, because she confidently stepped into the way of the hall. She casually looked around, and I felt a pang of envy for her being able to be so brave in a situation like this. I should be that confident! Why am I feeling so small? 

I cleared my throat. “Freiah said they had extra supplies and stuff in their bag- should we go there first?” I asked Elaina, but her eyes seemed distant. 

“Nah, we should go to the woodworking first. We’re gonna need weapons.” She said, and I wondered why I felt so relieved to hear her talk in the way she usually did. Maybe it was the stress and panic of the whole situation? Yeah, that’s probably it. 

“Right.” I nodded. “Lead the way, I guess.” I said, standing straighter than a white conservative American mom.

I followed Elaina through the halls, cautiously looking around. The place looked even worse than it already did- red smeared the once psychotically white walls, and this time the kids were dead on both inside and outside instead of just inside. Not going to lie, I liked it better when the kids were only dead inside- they looked less uglier that way. 

We finally made it to the woodworking room and Elaina casually opened the door whilst whistling a tune. Has she been whistling this whole time?? How have we not been attacked yet?? We both walked into the room, expecting to get hit by the usual smell of wood when we got in, but life did a 360 on us and we were hit by a nauseating stench that I recognized as dead bodies and blood. 

I immediately felt like puking out the pancakes I had this morning, but I had enough self-respect to keep it down. No way I would let the wonderful pancakes that I made go to waste. Nuh uh, no way. 

Elaina didn’t seem to mind the aroma, in fact, she seemed to sniff it right up. Weird- oh, wait- nope, Elaina’s always weird. Weird but in a weird way? Unusually weird?- You know what? I’m gonna stop. 

“Alright..” She said, looking around. “What should we get?” 

“Uh, maybe some saws? As much as we can carry without slicing off our fingers.” I suggested, and Elaina laughed. Okay, now back to her usual weird. Much better. 

We went over and grabbed some of the saws in our hands. I found out I could carry a good portion of saws with all my fingers intact and still working. 

“Hey.” Elaina greeted, and I glanced up at her. She wasn’t looking at me, which was odd, then I followed her eyes to the end of the room. Behind some of the wood, was a mimic. Well- it didn’t look exactly like a mimic- it had more human features than a mimic usually did in one of their final stages of life. And it was kid-shaped. I realized that this kid was like Korben- probably ate crawl before and got turned into.. This… 

Womp womp for them I guess. 

Elaina waved. “Are you gonna just ignore me?” She questioned, then the not-mimic-mimic skedaddled out the woodworking shop’s exit. I’ve never seen a mimic run away from good prey material before, but it looked goofy. Reminded me of minecraft characters running.

“That was rude.” I commented, rolling my eyes. Like- if you’re not going to kill us, at least be polite!! Damn! 

“Tell me about it.” Elaina grunted, before taking some hammers in her other hand. We both got a shit ton of carpentry tools and started discussing. We weren’t sure about where the other mimics/zombie things were in the school, so we just decided to be cautious nonetheless. We opened the door to leave and started joking around a bit, which really eased the tension and the fact that we could both get jumpscared by a mimic-thing at any given point.

Finally, we set out to get supplies from our bags. Everyone had given us their locker combinations and what they had in their bag that could be helpful, and Freiah wrote all that down. Then Elaina couldn’t read it, so Tolu had to rewrite the whole thing while Fries cried an apology/complaint about us not being able to read their handwriting.

So far, we knew that Fries and I had food, Tolu and Macy had nothing much, Elaina had sharp pencils, Xavier said we could get whatever we could find and Korben had his baseball bat in his locker (don’t ask why, we don’t know either). Too bad he wasn’t there for us to force his locker combination out of or to (playfully) poke fun at for being Korben. Huh. I might miss him, actually. 

Elaina paused when we were about to enter the grade (insert grade number) wing. She seemed like she was trying to figure out something. I was about to whisper ‘what?’ before Korben flew out of our classroom, which would have been a bit more okay-er if our classroom wasn’t the first classroom in the grade (insert grade number) wing!?!?? 

Before I knew it, he pounced straight at me, pinning me down as I screamed out in horror, and my leg kicked up at him on instinct, right in the- yikes there goes your future children. That only stunned him for a second though, because then his breathing got rapid and he aimed straight for my guts. 

“Korben! Get off!!” Elaina scolded, and miraculously, he paused for a second, his sharp ass teeth just barely hovering over me. If I were being pinned down like this by any other person (specifically Freiah) I would have said something sus, but if I would rather have Korben rip out my guts without mercy than having a dirty joke made about the two of us.

“Get off her?? I know she’s short, but c’mon.” Was Elaina some god or something?!? Korben hesitantly got off, and I could see his dilated pupils, now messed up ginger hair and blood-stained face. I preferred it when he looked like a gamer who never touched grass. 

He looked towards Elaina for a second and started towards her. I was about to scream at him Ariana Grande style when Korben paused. He studied Elaina (which was really uncomfortable to watch) before probably deciding that we weren’t worth it and then skedaddled off back to the classroom. Maybe he didn’t finish his Canadian Fried Children? 

“What was that?” I exclaimed, sitting up from the ground where I was ever-so-kindly tackled. 

Elaina shrugged, then took out her hand for me. “Korben being indecisive?” She questioned. 

I laughed, then took Elaina’s outstretched hand and shakily stood up. “Maybe he thought I had V-Bucks or something.” I chuckled. 

Even though Korben had decided to leave us alone, I still wanted to be careful when crossing our class to our lockers (I did not want to die by him), so I made sure we both were as quiet as mice crossing our classroom and towards our lockers. 

As I went to unlock my locker, we heard Korben munching on our classmates from within the classroom. 

My mind started to multi-task. Didn’t the instructional videos say that mimics don’t always finish their meal? They always ate one human at a time, and only 50% of it, anyways. So then why was Korben feasting on our classmates like he hasn’t eaten in weeks? Why are kids turning into mimics? What’s the whole deal with the uprising? What purpose does circumference serve in the real world and why do we have to learn it in math if we’re not going to be carpenters????

“Uhm, Piper?” Elaina snapped me out of my thoughts and I turned my head towards her in surprise. “You’ve been turning your lock in circles.” 

I glanced down, and surely, I was not doing my locker combination, just turning it right this whole time. “Whoops.” I blinked, before quickly turning my actual combination. Geez that totally wasn’t embarrassing. 

I opened up my locker and started rummaging through my bag. I brought out my lunch kit, along with my inhaler, and that was about it. I had nothing else exactly helpful in there. I turned to close the door when I was met with a picture of me and my sister, and some other friends (that weren’t the ones I escaped with).

How could I have forgotten them?! Oh God, I felt terrible- I hope they’re doing okay…

I took the pictures and stuffed them in my lunch kit, then shut the locker door lightly, not to alert Korben. I could feel emotions well up in me, but I did not want to cry here. 

“You open Fries’ locker.” I told Elaina, and she nodded. She put the saws and hammers down as she took Freiah’s lock in her hands and turned it to the combination. I felt like now was a good time to question her about the previous incident with her being all godlike to Korben. 

“So, uh.” I started, leaning against Harris’ locker (he didn’t have anything useful in there). “How’d you get Korben to follow your orders? It was really cool but also really weird.” I said with a chuckle. 

Elaina shrugged. “No clue.” She replied. “I guess I just asked nicely. I don’t think he’d listen to someone who kicked his balls and screamed ‘aaaaaa!’ in his face.” She mimicked my scream, which I would have tackled her on the ground for if this were some other situation and we weren’t in some sort of zombie apocalypse. 

“I’m going to kill you.” I groaned, rolling my eyes as she laughed. She unlocked Fries’ locker and took it open. I watched her rummage through Freiah’s messenger bag. “What did Fries say they had?” She asked. 

“A muffin, their lunch, utensils, pads- something like that.” 

“Don’t they have UNO in here too?” 

“Oh, yeah. Get that, that’s way more important.” 

Elaina agreed with me there, but she just decided to just bring the whole bag. Since it was a messenger bag, it was simple to take out. Freiah had said that it was hard to run with, and I could see how it was, but it seemed really handy, nonetheless. 

I put some of my stuff inside the bag as well and we went over to her and Xavier’s lockers. 

We both unlocked the lockers. Elaina was looking for her water bottle and sharp pencils (her inhaler as well) and I was looking for practically whatever I could find in Xavier’s. No, really, they just said take whatever, along with some personal items as well. 

We did that quickly, and shoved what we got (and the hammers) into Fries’ bag while we held the saws in our hands. Freiah probably won’t appreciate us bringing their bag over our backpacks, but whatever. We then proceeded to head back to our make-shift base. 

While we were walking across our classroom, trying to stay as quiet and discreet as possible, I accidentally turned to see what remained of our classmates. I wasn’t sure if anyone else managed to escape like we did, but now I hoped some did, because that scene was horrific. 

Their bodies were scattered everywhere in the class, which probably meant they tried running away, but Korben caught up to them. Speaking of Korben, he was hunched in the corner, munching on poor Riley. I never really liked him, but I didn’t think he deserved to die. I could see one of the bullets he always showed off during breaks still in one of his hands. Maybe he thought that could protect him? Yeah, right. 

I moved forward, trying to push down the mental image of my classmates’ dead and bloodied corpses lying on the ground. It was something you’d imagine in your dreams when you got annoyed at everyone, but get traumatized when you saw it in real life. Actually, it was still kind of funny in a way. Call me insane, but this is a crack fic. 

We were about to reach the bathroom when I heard footsteps behind us. I snapped my head around and my heart jumped out of my chest when I saw our vice principal towering his way towards us. The guy was already tall and scary as hell- being some sort of mimic-creature only enhanced that fact.

“Shit!” I swore, tugging Elaina with me quickly. I was not going to risk us both becoming white-girls-on-the-cob!! 

I wished that these mimics were still somewhat loyal to their instructional videos that we had to sit through. You’re telling me I had to sit through thirty minutes of slow text and low-resolution images only to be chased by a mimic when I have someone with me ?!?? I’m suing. 

But thank god for my leg power, because I managed to drag the both of us (Elaina sort of zoned out mid-chase) back to the washroom and pounded on the door. The mimic thing was just around the corner when the door opened up and we rushed inside.

Me and James (who was kind enough to actually open the door up for us) then forced the door shut using the power of teamwork (I will never say that again) and locked it immediately. 

I leaned against the door, panting as I tried to regain myself. I dropped the saws from my hands as I looked at everyone. 

I was not expecting to see Xavier on the ground, holding in blood coming from his nose, and Tolu towering over them, breathing heavily. 

Chapter Text

Xavier couldn’t stay still. They kept pacing the bathroom floor while they talked about survival plans with Tolu. Well, Tolu and company, more like. Everyone just sort of listened half-heartedly into the plans the two made and added whatever input they wanted to along with them. Soon enough, it was a whole group discussion, which was honestly much better than two people deciding the well-being of eighteen-nineteen kids.

“We’re probably gonna need some leader of sort..” Claire was saying. “Someone who could keep everyone under control, and that everyone would listen to..” 

“Fries?” Kaela suggested. 

Freiah shrugged. “Hypothetically, I could , but don’t think I can take that much responsibility. I could step up if we needed to get everyone under control quickly, but I won’t be a full-time leader or.. Whatever.”

“You’re honestly real for that, Freiah.” Macy commented, and Freiah awkwardly chuckled in response. 

“So then.. Who should it be, then?” Polly asked. “And it’s not going to be Lael, Parker, or Izaiah.” She quickly added, side-eying the three. Lael swore at her and sulked. He was definitely about to ask if he could be the leader.

“I could.” Tolu and Xavier said at the same time, then immediately shot the other a glare. 

“What do you mean, ‘you could’ ?” Tolu scowled, shooting Xavier a bitter look. 

“Well, everyone here listens to me, I have good ideas and plans, and I actually paid attention to the instructional videos they showed us, along with what Madame said in the drills.” Xavier replied, confident in their words. 

“Ugh- big deal!” Tolu rolled her eyes. “What does it matter if you paid attention to the drills or not??” 

“Oh, I don’t know… maybe your life?!” 

“Guys! Guys..” Freiah quickly butted in, standing up and standing between the two, which was really funny to see because of how short they were. Xavier held back making fun of them. “We really don’t have to fight on this! We don’t need a leader-” 

“What would make you a good leader, Tolu?” Xavier asked, but it sounded like a challenge. “Just want to yell at people?” 

“Maybe- You know what? Shut up!” Tolu scoffed. “Ever thought of giving someone else a try? It wouldn’t hurt to let someone else be the leader, would it? I bet you just don’t want me to be leader, huh.” Her words came out accusingly, and her veins started becoming a bit too noticeable than preferred, and her pupils dilated just a bit. It reminded Xavier a bit of when Korben… No, that’s just a coincidence. 

“Tolu, calm down-” Fries chuckled awkwardly, but unfortunately got interrupted. 

“Maybe I do.” Xavier replied matter-of-a-factly. “Tolu, all you do is yell at people, and boss them around. Having you as a leader would just be-” 

Xavier didn’t even get to finish their sentence when they felt a fist against their face. They heard several people cry out their name as they hit the ground, followed by the door banging. It was hard to concentrate on everything around with this nauseating feeling stirring up inside them. They tried focusing their attention on Tolu, who stood right above them. 

They couldn’t tell clearly, but they saw that her eyebrows were knitted, and her eyes were wide open. Her hands were over her mouth and she was very tense. She was breathing heavily as she stared down at what she's done.

“What the bloody fuck is going on???” Elaina suddenly got in the bathroom, and used like- 30 accents in a seven word sentence. She had Freiah’s messenger bag hanging on her shoulder, and Piper right beside her. Both were staring dumb-founded at the whole situation. 

“I-I..” Tolu stammered, which was odd regarding how she was just a second ago. 

Xaviers mind cleared up a bit and they finally got a hold of their surroundings. Unfortunately, that meant they now had to listen to the concern of everyone in the room, which was a lot louder than they thought.

Elaina quickly got to their side and helped them up. They reassured everyone they were okay as they scrambled up, even though they were barely able to stay upright without falling. 

“We need to get that cleaned up.” She said with a slight chuckle, as she wiped a bit of the blood with her sweater sleeve. 

Tolu finally got ahold of herself too, because she wasted no time with an apology. “Xavier, I am so so so sorry - I-I don’t know what happened- or what got into me - I-” 

“Tolu, it’s fine. I’ll be okay.” Xavier responded, despite all their thoughts being scrambled.

“No! You won’t! I just punched you! I punched my friend- my boss boss! I don’t know what got into me, I’m so sorry..” And she kept rambling about how sorry she was, but Xavier just blinked and nodded through the rest. God, are nosebleeds supposed to feel this awful?? 

Fortunately, Elaina got (forced) Tolu to embrace the fact that Xavier forgave her (kinda- they just wanted to sleep at this point), and then got to cleaning up the nosebleed. 

She made them sit down on the toilet seat and pinch the bridge of their nose, and Freiah had suggested with a tissue, so they got some of the toilet paper (gotta make do with what you got) and then did that for around a minute or so. 

“Xavier- are you okay?? Tolu literally whipped your ass.” Macy asked, leaning against the wall next to the toilet. 

“I’ll be fine, ya fake ginger.” Xavier muttered. 

“Bro- stop calling me that!!” Macy rolled her eyes. “You know what, I’m glad Tolu punched you, actually.”  

“No you aren’t.” 

“Grah.” 

“What the fuck??” 

Xavier couldn’t get their answer for whatever the hell Macy was saying, though, because they were then interrupted by a loud banging from the other end of the door. The noise startled everyone, scaring the shit out of most of them. 

“Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention that we were getting chased by another mimic-zombie thing.” Elaina shrugged, as if it weren’t that big of a deal. “He was so big-”

“That’s what she said!!” Piper immediately exclaimed, earning a mixture of laughs and/or deadpans from everyone in the restroom. 

“Xavier, are you okay?” Someone asked for the millionth time already, but thankfully, it was someone they actually liked: James. 

“Yeah.” They answered, pairing it with a thumbs-up to exaggerate their point. “I’m okay. It’ll stop bleeding in a minute or two, if Freiah and Elaina aren’t lying to me.” They reassured. 

“Okay, good, because I was really worried there..” James chuckled. 

“Alright pookie nation!-” Fries started, before getting cut off by Tolu. 

“It’s Fellas. ” She corrected, a bit of bitterness in her voice, but Xavier knew that it was fake, and was nonetheless glad to see Tolu as her normal self. 

Freiah ignored her and moved on. “I have come to the conclusion that once Xavier heals up, we’re out of here! We have estimated that everyone who can, will get a weapon, and everyone who doesn’t, can fight, but I don’t think we’ll have to do that.” Xavier could hear their voice wavering a bit as they tried to remain confident for everyone. It was honestly sad. This whole thing was sad, actually. 

“From this point on, I don’t want to hear any unnecessary arguments, or arguments about who’s in charge.” They shot a ‘discreet’ look towards Tolu and Xavier. “We will work as a team . You hear me?” They explained the whole thing  like they were speaking with preschoolers, but when you remember how the kids in this group are, they might as well have been.  

Everyone mumbled a response. 

“That was terrible. Try again.” Fries blinked. 

This time, everyone was much clearer, and by clearer, everyone sort of screamed out some form of response, not all of them a definite ‘yes.’

Xavier noticed Harris on the ground, back slumped as he grimaced by the sound level of everyone screaming out a response for Freiah. He also had Fries’ headphones in, now. No doubt they gave them to him to help his ‘headaches’ since they were noise-cancelling. Fries was too naive to believe that lie, Xavier hated it. 

“Well, then it’s settled.” Freiah said, cautiously checking out the door. “We leave in five minutes. Everyone get ready.” 

- - - - - -

Xavier guessed that five minutes had passed, because before they knew it, everyone was outside. 

Freiah thought it was a magnificent idea to give their kids the saws and hammers and the other stuff to protect them with, but as much as Xavier liked Fries’ kids, they knew that was a terrible idea. 

“Because we can handle ourselves just fine! They’re younger, so they’re going to need some more protection!” They had argued. 

“They’re one year younger than us.” Xavier deadpanned. 

“Still younger than us!” Then they didn’t argue more. Get this, they even gave shitting blue hair and pronouns here a hammer! Favouritism at its peak. 

“Keep your eyes and ears open- you don’t know when a mimic-zombie thing can come out.” Piper hushed, glaring at the air around them as if a mimic could just appear out of thin air. She was walking around like how people would in those spy movies, and Xavier found it weird yet normal coming from Piper. 

“Piper what the fuck are you doing??” Macy asked, walking casually behind the blonde. “You look like a fucking spider.” 

“Same height as one, too.” Xavier grinned, glad to be making fun of Piper instead of worrying about everybody dying. 

“You guys clearly have never watched the movies.” Piper scoffed, rolling her eyes. “All the people who survive do this, so forgive me for being sensible!!” 

“I will never forgive you for being short. ” Xavier chuckled, throwing Piper an ‘L’ before griddying over to Elaina, who was near the end of the group. Why she was in the back, Xavier didn’t know, but they wanted to check up on her nonetheless.

“So how was the trip to get the stuff? Unfortunately Piper didn’t die along the way.” They asked. 

Elaina laughed. “It was okay. We got jumpscared by Korben, though.” She mentioned. 

“You did?!” Xavier exclaimed, bamboozled. “Shit- are you okay??” 

“Yeah, I used magical Jesus powers to get him off Piper.”

“He was humping Piper??” 

“What?!” Harris questioned, turning around to face them. Xavier had no idea how he got there. “I- okay…” 

“Who was humping who??” Dorito demanded, also turning fully around to face Xavier and Elaina. 

“Korben and Piper, apparently.” Harris shrugged, and Dorito stared at them flabbergasted, before giggling and running ahead to find Piper and probably tell her about what she heard. The saw in her hands suddenly didn’t seem like a good idea, but Xavier didn’t really mind if she pulled a Kronos on Piper. That would be funny to watch. 

Freiah came around a second or something later, just to check up on Harris and everyone else nearby. They all chatted for a good second or so. 

“What if I just like- fucked the zombies.” Harris suggested, which earned him blank but not surprised stares from everyone around. 

“Don’t.” Fries whispered, shaking their head slowly. 

Soon enough, the group neared Harris’ house, which looked to be in pretty good condition,  especially when regarding what’s currently going on. 

“There’s my house..” Harris mused, looking at the building. Fries shot him a concerned look before looking straight at it, too. 

“Yep..” They muttered. Harris paused, looking at the place for a second, stopping Xavier and Elaina behind. 

“Move your blue ass.” Xavier rolled their eyes, but Harris didn’t budge. He stared at the house for a good moment, then the rest of the group noticed and paused.

“Can you guys hurry up??” Tolu groaned. “We don’t have all day!” Then, a dog ran out, and Harris recognized her as his dog. 

Despite his ‘headaches’, he couldn’t help but forge towards his beloved pet. He held his arms out for the dog, but then the dog paused.

“Uhhmm..” Freiah muttered, catching up to Harris. Xavier didn’t like this. They were about to scream at them both to get to get the fuck out of there, when the dog froze. 

Harris stared at his pet in confusion. “Uh-”

Suddenly, the dog let out a terrifying howl and started nabbing at the ground. Xavier could see Freiah grab Harris’ wrist out of the corner of their eye, probably urging him to move back. 

The dog’s eyes grew larger and- did its limbs grow ?? Some of the fur was falling off as well and- okay now’s the time to run. 

“Skedaddle!!” Elaina cried, pushing Fries and Harris forward. Freiah quickly caught on and started dragging Harris along with them, who was completely shocked now. 

The rest of the group needed no reminders. Everyone started speeding towards Xavier’s house, as that was their main destination in the first place. Lael kept swearing out of fear, and Macy repeatedly told him to shut up as she herself complained about running for the 40th time that day.

“Is it gone?!” Claire yelled, holding her saw in a way that suggested she would be willing to cut off the arms and head of anyone that challenged her. 

“Just keep running until we reach Xavier’s!!” Frieiah heaved. Xavier knew how much they hated running, and Xavier hated it just as much.

“I don’t wanna die yet!! I haven’t deleted my search history!!” Izaiah complained. 

“It’s not like anyone would want to look at that in the first place!!” Piper snapped. Unlike Xavier and Freiah, Piper enjoyed running, and was well ahead of most of the group. “Now catch up before you fucking die!” 

It felt like forever until they finally made it to Xavier’s house. They quickly unlocked the door and forced everyone inside. Freiah didn’t go in until they were sure everyone was there. Once they were 100% certain they didn’t forget anyone (* cough* Lael *cough* ) , they shut the door behind them and locked it. They looked out the window of the door quickly before turning to face their kids and others.

“Everyone alright?” They asked, panting out of exhaustion. 

“Uh, yeah..” Polly muttered. “But what was that?! What happened with Harris’ dog??” 

Suddenly, all eyes were on Harris. Freiah could tell the attention was making their uwu babygirl fairy princess uncomfortable, so they stepped in. “You know, we don’t have to worry about that now. All that matters is that we’re safe and- oh wait! Let me do role call..” They remembered, pulling out their mini book from their back pocket and started reading out names. 

“Macy.” They called out. 

“Grah, Ice Spice” 

“I’m- what? Y’know what, nevermind.. Uhmm, Elaina.” They said, but was met with silence. “Elaina?!” They repeated, more frantic now. 

Elaina suddenly appeared behind Tolu and Kaela, promptly scaring the shit out of both of them. She gave Freiah a small wave, and they sighed in relief. 

“Use your voice next time..” They muttered, before continuing on with everyone else’s names. 

After what seemed to be decades, Freiah finished and was satisfied to hear everyone was still alive. Xavier invited everyone to just do whatever for now. “Don’t break anything, and we’ll call you if we need to.” They said to the younger part of the group.

Tolu, Macy, Elaina, Freiah and Piper eyed Xavier curiously when they mentioned that. 

“Oh, are we gonna talk about something or..?” Elaina questioned. 

“Yeah, we still have plans to figure out.” Xavier sighed, leaning against a wall. 

“Shouldn’t we have some of the kids here, too, then?” Freiah suggested, definitely still shaken up from the previous incident. “I mean, we can’t just decide for the well-being of everyone if everyone isn’t here- Harris?” They discontinued their sentence when they noticed Harris turn to leave. “You’re part of this, too, you know-” 

“He is?” Piper asked, but Freiah shot her a ‘please don’t’ look.

“I’m just, uh.. Gonna take a second. Bye.” He muttered before leaving up the stairs. 

“How does he know where he’s going?” Tolu questioned. 

“Guys, give him space.” Freiah said, giving their friends puppy-dog eyes. “I mean, he just watched his dog mutate into… whatever that was. I would be pretty bummed out about that, too.” 

Awkward silence (except for Polly yelling at Lael from somewhere else in the house but shh). 

“What the hell are your kids doing, Freiah??” Macy questioned, turning back to find them. “Y’know what, it sounds pretty funny, I’ma go see what they’re up to, actually.” And just like that, the artificial ginger left the chat. 

“Okay, anyways..” Xavier cleared their throat. “Are we going to stay here for the night?” They asked. 

“Yeah, I guess.” Elaina shrugged. “Nowhere else to go for now, so we’re crashing here.” 

“Are we gonna go to Tolu’s house sometime, or are we just going to stay here?” Piper asked, and Tolu seemed flattered by her suggestion. 

“Awh, thanks Piper.” She smiled, then deadpanned and turned to Xavier. “I don’t know why I thanked the blondie, but moving on. Are we gonna go to my house, Xavier?” She asked. 

Xavier shrugged. “Not sure. We might stay here for a bit, stock up on supplies and stuff, then we will.” They concluded, and thankfully, that seemed to satisfy everybody. That’s what it seemed, anyways, since no one really argued back.

“Yeah, seems reasonable to me.” Piper shrugged. 

“Samesies here.” Freiah agreed.  

Elaina shrugged. “Sure why not.” 

“I guess it’ll do..” Tolu muttered. 

“Then it’s a go!” Xavier announced, glad that no one argued. Oh god, please no arguing. They checked the clock on a nearby wall. It was around 1:12-ish. Xavier was pretty surprised that time had gone by so quickly. They turned to everyone else. “So.. sun usually sets at.?” 

“Around eight, I think.” Piper answered. 

“Yeah, okay. That’s pretty good.” Xavier nodded, pacing the floor a bit, avoiding the stuff on the ground as if they'd memorized the exact placement of every misplaced toy. “We have enough time. Who wants to eat?” 

- - - - - - - -

Food was better than Xavier thought it would be. 

Them and Piper worked the kitchen, with the occasional help of Elaina, Tolu or Freiah, but overall just them. Sometimes Fries’ kids butted in to check what was going on (and bug them), but they never did anything much. Freiah always made sure they used a good amount of food to save some for later, and distributed it evenly amongst everyone. Soon enough they were done with the meal: hot dogs. 

Now, everyone who could was sitting at the table, and those who couldn’t, brought in chairs and sat around. 

Some light chatter made its way through the group, but nothing too grand. Xavier noticed Harris was back, and was seated next to Freiah, which was something Xavier felt like they needed to get used to, now. They really didn’t want to do that.

“Ugh, this is exhausting..” Lael grumbled, propping his elbows on the table and throwing his face in his hands. That was a mistake. 

Freiah’s smile from talking to Elaina immediately evaporated, and they glared at Lael, who then started to sweat with the stare that was being given to him.

“Uh-” 

“Put. The. Elbows. Down. ” Freiah ordered, their face hard as stone as they used the ‘angry mom look.’ Their words came out cold and demanding, something it never is, unless you have your elbows on the table. 

Lael took his elbows off the table. 

“Thank you.” Freiah replied, smile back on their face as they continued to chat with Elaina as if nothing ever happened. 

Lael blinked a couple of times, before Polly started to make fun of him, which he quickly lost his shit about and started swearing at her. Then Xavier glared at him and told him to stop talking with his mouth full. Then Lael shut up again . 

Once they were all finished up, Freiah and Elaina volunteered to clean up the dishes and Isaiah actually went to help them, which was nice. 

Xavier looked outside the window. It was now around five- or six? Wow, they took a while to eat (they were mostly talking about random shit like there wasn’t a whole ass apocalypse going on). Oh, whatever. It was around that time, and the sun was very much up. It looked nice outside, and if it were any other situation, They would have happily thrown Harris out. Too bad Freiah was in a protective mood today. 

“Ice spice jumpscare.”

Xavier jumped, then upon recognizing who it was, groaned. They pinched the bridge of their nose. “Jesus, Macy..” They grumbled, and Macy laughed like the little evil gay witch she was. 

“Hehe I got you.” She teased. “Why are you being so emo? What kind of crawl got into your bloodstream, bro??” 

“If I had crawl in my bloodstream, I would have ended up like Korben.” Xavier deadpanned, and looked out the window again. 

“Why is everyone so emo now?? First Freiah, then Tolu, Harris, Piper, Elaina, and you??” 

“Elaina’s not emo.” 

“Yeah, now she is. She’s being all weird and standing awkwardly with them big eyes.” 

“No she isn’t.” Xavier rolled their eyes, before turning back and looking around the house. “Where did everyone go?” 

“In my basement.” 

“No, really.” 

“Upstairs, I think.” Macy shrugged. “I don’t know man, I don’t think I’ve been to your house before!!”

Xavier didn’t even let her finish talking when they started upstairs. They passed by Elaina, Freiah, and Isaiah doing the dishes, and thankfully they seemed to be doing fine.  They went up the stairs and then found everyone in a circle in their room, as if summoning something. “What are you guys doing.” They deadpanned. 

“Oh! We’re playing telephone.” Piper said with her usual psychotic grin. “Wanna join?” 

“No thanks. I’d rather not.” Xavier replied. 

“C’mon Xavier, please?? It’s really fun so far!!” Lochlan asked, and Xavier found it hard to say no to him. 

“Okay, fine.” They concluded. “I’ll play.” 

- - - - - - 

Xavier didn’t even know how much time had passed until the time passed. 

Apparently it was eight forty something now, and Freiah was forcing everyone to sleep, as if they could actually sleep a good ten hours.

“Do as I say, not what I do.” Freiah was saying when Kaela questioned their habits. “Now go to bed.” 

They had stuffed the kids in three groups, then splattered said groups around the second floor of Xavier’s house. They made sure that the groups weren’t going to cause any extra trouble or noise, and that the groups were fair. After much debate, they ended up with pretty even groups of three. 

Fries had requested to stay on the second floor along with their kids, but then the kids denied it, saying something, something, privacy or whatever. Freiah had side eyed them, but agreed nonetheless. For the rest of the group, they stayed in the living room, near the stairway to upstairs, so they could check up on the younger kids if they (Fries) needed to. 

They had theorized that most attacks would come from below, so they wanted to protect the other half of the group from there if that were to happen, but Piper assured everyone that that would probably not happen. Then when Fries kept worrying, Tolu did the same, just a bit more aggressive. 

Now, the seven were sprayed out along the living room. It was awkwardly silent. 

“Remember the band trip?” Piper said out of the blue as everyone was trying to sleep. 

“You mean when you and Elaina were cuddling? Yeah, unfortunately I do.” Tolu grumbled, rolling her eyes as Piper giggled. 

“Excuse me?? What am I hearing??” Macy laughed. 

“Yeah, they kept talking and I couldn’t fucking sleep.” Tolu grumbled, yet Piper and Elaina couldn’t stop giggling to themselves. 

“Can you guys not..? I’m tryna sleep..” Freiah mumbled, turning over so their back was against their friends. 

“Yeah, guys, maybe stop.” Harris also added (simp), turning around himself. 

“Yeah, guys .” Tolu mocked, before scoffing and stuffing her face into a pillow. 

“Maayong buntag everyone.” Freiah yawned. 

“Don’t know what the fuck that means but okay.” Xavier said, and somehow that was the end of that night’s commotion. Just kidding, it wasn’t. 

Xavier was woken up by shaking. God they hated being forced awake. They hated being woken up in general, actually, no matter if they got good sleep or not. 

“What??” They grumbled, only to be met with Fries’ worried face. Of course they got woken up by them. 

“Spores- Host-..Leave, now!! ” They muttered, holding their nose shut, and urging Xavier to do the same. 

Spores? From a host? That wasn’t good. The outbreak must have gotten the other vita carnis creatures involved as well, which was just plain awesome, totally. 

Xavier slowly got up, but Freiah was already up and running. Damn- were they always like this in the morning? Wait- what time is it? Xavier checked the clock and.. 3:06 am?? Huh, maybe 3 am was a cursed time. 

“Wait- but if it’s just spores, we just need to cover our noses- right??” Xavier asked groggily. 

“Well, usually, yeah, but there’s too much this time. We have to get out and take medication now.” Freiah answered urgently. They called out their kids one more time, before deciding that it would just be better to run upstairs to them. 

Xavier looked around the living room. The only ones still there were Macy and Piper, and they were also holding in her nose. Macy was muttering swears under her breath while Piper looked around the space for something Xavier wasn’t sure off. Xavier turned over towards the kitchen and saw Elaina stuffing some food and stuff into a bag. 

“Where’s Harris and Tolu?” They asked, and Piper peeped up at their voice. She looked exhausted, but Xavier guessed that she was still just as capable of running 69 laps around Canada if given the chance to right this instant.

“They’re uh..” She trailed off. “Kinda tied up.” 

“What!?” 

“They inhaled the spores and Freiah wasn’t risking anything.” Piper explained, and it made sense now. 

“Wait- so Freiah found out about the spores first?” 

“Nah, Elaina did.” Macy corrected. “Freiah was just the first one to be a giga chad and act.” She said. 

“I do not understand how you’re able to make jokes like that in a time like this.” Xavier deadpanned, before being interrupted by Freiah storming down the stairs, somehow already woken all the kids up and got them ready to skedaddle for the 9393742th time today.

“Move your asses, we’re leaving.”

Chapter Text

Kaela almost fell down the stairs.

But could you blame her, though?? She had to get woken up at three fucking am. Who wouldn’t be at least a little pissed? Yeah, she wasn’t exactly sleeping (insomnia go brr) but still- moving is hard>:( 

She, Claire, Polly and Daphne (the people she luckily was paired up with for groups) were told by a very frantic Fries that they were leaving because of the host’s spores. Kaela didn’t think it was a big deal, since she’s accidentally inhaled the spores before. It goes away with some medicine, anyway!! Unfortunately, Fries argued that these spores weren’t the spores they were used to; they were more powerful and strong, they said? Geez, she wondered how Fries knew that. 

Once Kaela finally got down the stairs (without falling !!), they saw Elaina stock up on food, Macy and Piper scouring the floors as if on an easter egg hunt, and Xavier was frozen, probably still getting a hold of their senses after being forced awake so early. Fries yelled at everyone to hurry up. They then turned to their group of kids (which wasn’t all of them, but a good number, anyways).

“Okay, so I want you to get anything that could be used as a weapon, got it?” They ordered. “But show me first, so I can tell if it’s usable or not.” 

“Can’t we use the saws and hammers you gave us?” Isaiah asked, followed by a yawn.

“You can, but there’s just more variety with weapons in Xavier’s house.” Fries explained. “Now get whatever you want. Xavier, do you have any extra bags..?” And then they jogged over towards their friend to get answers, leaving their kids to think for themselves. 

“We get whatever we want? Let’s go!!” Lael grinned, before running straight into the kitchen, probably to get a butcher’s knife that Fries would definitely not allow since, it’s… well , It’s Lael.

Kaela felt the axe body spray in her pocket that she had stolen from her classmate yesterday before.. All of that.. You weren’t actually supposed to have axe body spray in school, but Kaela’s classmate did anyway. She wondered if Xavier had a lighter (which they probably did). She once saw somewhere that if you used axe body spray, plus a lighter, you can have a pretty neat reaction that’ll totally not kill the nearest person. 

“Kaela?? Are you dead?” Claire snapped Kaela out of their little brainstorm, waving her hand in front of her face. She sighed in relief when Kaela blinked back at her in confusion. “Oh thank god.. I was getting worried..” 

“What are you guys thinking of getting?” Polly asked. 

“I’m keeping the saw. It’s pretty handy, to be honest.” Claire replied, observing the tool in her hands. “I like it.” 

“Guys!! I found a lightsaber!!” Daphne screamed at the group, holding out some toy lightsaber that seemed to be older than time itself that she had found somewhere. “Watch me beat the crap outta those mimic-zombie things star-wars style!!” She then showed off the ‘weapon’, spinning it around and dropping it before quickly picking it up and pretending like that never happened.

“You guys should put on the masks.” James appeared, momentarily scaring the shit out of Kaela. He handed the group some of the masks dedicated for host-spores. The government had forced everyone to keep at least ten in their house, and luckily Xavier had way more than that. “Just so you don’t have to keep holding your breath in.” He added with a small chuckle.

“Thanks.” Kaela replied, taking a mask on for herself. The masks themselves were shaped like the bottom of a usual gas mask, and a lot less heavier. They were made for easy go, and to fit in your bag so that you could just take it out whenever needed. But they still looked really ugly though, in Kaela’s opinion. 

“Are you going to change your weapon, James?” Polly asked, pulling on the mask for herself. 

James shrugged. “I might keep my saw. Although, I was thinking of using something less bulky.” he said. 

“Is anyone else still sleeping?” Fries asked, running towards the group. They didn’t even properly put their mask on, just held it to their face. 

“Uh yeah, practically the entirety of the third group..” James answered. “Some of group one is waking up.” 

“‘Kay, thanks.” Fries nodded, and started to go up the stairs before pausing and turning back to the kids. “Oh! Do you mind helping out Elaina and the others? I got them to gather food and supplies and all that shit. They might need some help packing it up, and we need to go as soon as possible.” 

Kaela shrugged, Polly, Daphne and Claire nodded and James gave his parental figure a thumbs-up before running off to do that. 

“Wait- can I ask something?” Kaela called out to Fries before they could stampede up the stairs. They paused and snapped their head around to face her, which kind of caught Kaela off-guard, not gonna lie. 

“Make it quick. I need to wake the others up..” They muttered.

“Where’s Harris and Tolu? You mentioned they were tied up, but you didn’t specify where they were.” In all honesty, the thought of Harris being restrained was shitting hilarious to Kaela, and even funnier that Fries was okay with it, but she didn’t mention that. 

“We put them on the patio-front porch thing..” Fries stammered, waving their hand in the direction of the where they were referring to. “I don’t know what it’s called- but they’re there. And don’t you dare think of visiting them! Not yet, anyway.” 

“Why can’t you just give them the pills?” Polly asked, mask making her voice hard to hear. 

“Because Xavier’s family ran out, and forgot to buy new ones last week..” Fries rolled their eyes. “I’m gonna wake the others up, now. Go help Elaina!” And they skedaddled up the stairs. 

Kaela blinked. Xavier’s family’s simple mistake cost them all the lives of two of their friends. Kaela knew she couldn’t blame them, but still- oh she was getting pulled along now. 

Her, Polly, Claire and Daphne stood in the kitchen of Xavier’s house. They saw Elaina and James putting all sorts of food inside of Fries’ bag, and a Paw Patrol backpack that was totally in fashion within their age range.

“Is that freakin’ paw patrol??” Daphne giggled. 

“We didn’t have another bag!!!” James groaned, but a smile formed on his face as well. 

Kaela noticed Elaina didn’t have a mask, which got her a bit worried, so as Claire, Polly and Daphne went along with James packing up the food, they made their way towards Elaina. She awkwardly stood near her as she packed up the food.

“Why don’t you have a mask?” She asked, chuckling awkwardly. Elaina stood up to reach for something on a high shelf and Kaela went to steal a look at what was in the bag. 

“I told Freiah to give everyone a mask before me.” Elaina shrugged, throwing a bag of chips in Kaela’s direction and gesturing for her to put it in the bag. 

“Oh, okay.” Kaela nodded. They knew Elaina also liked caring for the wellbeing of their friends, so her turning down a mask didn't seem unusual, coming from her. 

Suddenly, the air seemed to feel a bit more… peculiar.. ? (heh, mphfpc reference-) Even through the mask, it didn’t seem like regular air. Then Kaela realized it was the spores. Usually, the spores didn’t have a scent in particular, but now they did. That was scary. 

“Guys!!” Fries rushed down the stairs. They had definitely noticed the change. “We need to go- like, now !!” They had the rest of their kids following down the stairs. They all seemed pretty cranky from waking up this early. Kaela could swear she heard Tega mutter something about ‘getting his beauty sleep’ (which she wasn’t surprised about, coming from him).

Luckily, everyone who was packing seemed to be finished. Macy and Piper emerged from the living room, and Daphne zipped up the paw patrol bag but (aggressively) forced it onto James’ shoulder instead of hers.

Fries insisted on doing another role call, and they did. They read off the names like fire- not wasting a single second to pause. 

“Xavier?” They had called out after a dozen other names, but nothing replied. They opened their mouth to start panicking about where Xavier was before Xavier entered the room, carrying a shit ton of weapons-that-weren’t-actually-weapons. They set the stuff down on the ground, panting out of exhaustion from carrying them all. Everyone stared in surprise. 

“What?” Xavier questioned. “Go on, take whatever.” 

And just like that, everyone dove in for weapons. Kaela was thankful it didn’t turn into the hunger games when people started fighting over weapons. She spotted a sledgehammer in the mix, and looked around. No one seemed to want it, so she took it. It was pretty heavy, but it’ll work for now. 

Oh! That reminded her.. 

“Xavier, do you have a lighter somewhere?” She asked, trying to be the most normal a person asking for a lighter in the middle of an apocalypse could be. 

Xavier thankfully just shrugged and pointed to a drawer. “There. Don’t break it.” They said casually, and rested an axe on their shoulder. 

Kaela went to the drawer and opened it so hard it almost fell off. She scoured the contents of the drawer before finding the lighter Xavier was talking about. The overall colour was red, and had some design of a moose wearing sunglasses whilst holding a thumbs-up towards the nonexistent camera. Pure Canadiancore. 

She pocketed the fire-creating machine into her pants pocket, and looked back to the group. The thought of both Is/zaiahs having sharp weapons did not seem like something anyone could survive with. Oh whatever, Fries was already making plans to go to Tolu’s house. 

“-it’s gonna be far, so we need to be quick.” They were saying. 

“Why can’t we go to my house? Or like- Kaela’s?” Macy asked, eyeing the plastic sword in her hand like it was the most disgusting thing she’s ever seen. “They’re a lot closer.” 

“Because, hypothetically speaking, Tolu’s house is bigger and like she said- probably safer. It’s very spacious, just to add.” Fries sighed. “And also because we promised Tolu, and I don’t like breaking promises.” 

Macy shrugged. “Alright, then.” She said, “Can I stop by my house on the way, though-” 

“No!!” Xavier interrupted. “We can’t make stops on the way!! Do you want to die??” 

“Damn! Okay, just a suggestion!” Macy rolled her eyes. “. ..What if I was- ” 

“We. Are. Not. Stopping!! ” Xavier insisted, and Macy groaned. 

“Are we good now?” Fries asked awkwardly, before clearing their throat and continuing nonetheless. “How heavy are the supply bags?” They asked Elaina and James. 

“Kind of heavy, not gonna lie..” James laughed awkwardly. Elaina just shrugged, which everyone took as a ‘it’s okay, I can manage.’ 

“Okay, so then we can just take turns carrying them.” Fries nodded. “Although I need Elaina to hold Tolu, so can someone else carry the bag?” 

“Why do you need her to hold Tolu?” Piper asked. 

“Because I don’t want Tolu going feral or going to the host.” Fires answered. “And I think Elaina’s the only one that can restrain Tolu.” 

Piper nodded. “I could carry the bag.” She offered.

Elaina walked over to the short one and plopped the bag onto her shoulders without another word. Piper nearly collapsed.

 “Goddamn!- Why the fuck is it so heavy??” 

Elaina mewed. “Just because.” She said, unleashing the cringey instagram filters and turning into a disney princess for a second as she said that. 

Piper stared at her with murder in her eyes and violence coursing through her bloodstream. 

“Okay..” Tega whistled. “We should really get going now unless we want to literally die from the spores.”

Fries nodded. “Good idea.” 

- - - - - - -

But first they had to get the patients. 

Fries had instructed Piper, Xavier and Macy to watch over the kids (terrible mistake) as they and Elaina went to go fetch Harris and Tolu. Kaela tagged along.

“Why are you coming with us again?” Fries asked. 

“It’ll be funny seeing Harris tied up.” Kaela grinned, and Fries eyed her before sighing and continuing on. 

Elaina opened the door up, and amongst that junk, was Tolu and Harris, as promised.

“There you guys are!!” Tolu huffed, and at first glance, she seemed like her usual self. But the more Kaela stared, she could notice her eyes were red and she looked exhausted (which, to be fair, they all were). Her movements were slow and rigid, like a zombie, and she didn’t seem to be able to process objects in her way, accidentally ramming into a few as she staggered towards the three. “You just locked us up in here!” 

Fries inhaled a breath and handed a mask to Elaina, who didn’t waste time putting it on Tolu. 

“ Ach! What the- ” 

“We need this to be quick, okay?” Fries sighed, turning away with guilt as Tolu struggled with the mask that was being forced on her now. 

“Why are we giving them masks if they already breathed some of the spores in?” Kaela whispered to Fries, pretending like the sight of Tolu going delulu isn’t negatively affecting her in any way. 

“I…” Fries bit the inside of their lip. “Don’t want to risk anything.” 

As Tolu was getting dragged out the room, kicking and complaining as if she were getting booted off the stage of America's Got Talent, Fries walked over towards Harris, which Kaela had just noticed was on the ground. His appearance was no different from Tolu’s, just he wasn’t exactly up and moving. He sat still on the ground, leaning against some mystery object Kaela wasn't one hundred percent sure about.

“Hey, you okay?” Fries cooed, throwing on a simple smile for their malewife as if they weren’t screaming at everyone to hurry up so they could evacuate earlier. They handed him a mask. 

Harris shook his head. “I don’t need it.” He coughed, and Fries shot him a look between concern and ‘you’ve got to be kidding me’ Harris noticed their expression. “I’m immune to the spores already. I won’t have the urge to just make my way to the host. Trust.” 

“Yeah, no way I’m doing that.” Fries sighed, rolling their eyes. Then, they decided to take on a more softer approach. “Please? Just put on the mask. For me?” They coaxed, a sweet smile returning on their lips. Damn, Fries was one hell of a rizzler. 

Kaela noticed Harris open his mouth to object before pausing. The two kind of had a mini staring competition, but Fries must have won because Harris then turned away and hesitantly took the mask from Fries’ hands.

Ugh, Kaela wished they could just force it on him already and leave. They didn’t have time for their flirting/romancing/drooling over each other!! They had blood-thirsty creatures after them for god’s sake! 

“Just put the damn mask on!” Kaela snapped, just as Harris was putting the mask on. 

“Now that you say it like that, no.” Harris then responded, being the sassy smartass Kaela knew him as, pretending to take off the mask now. 

“Harris!!” Kaela and Fries scolded him at the same time. Fries shot a ‘seriously?’ kind of look at Kaela before snapping their attention back to their honey muffin cakes made with mud instead of honey because Harris was nowhere near ‘sweet.’ 

“Put the mask on, we’re leaving.” Fries ordered, and Kaela was a tad amazed at how quickly they can just switch demeanours like that.

Harris groaned, but did so anyway. Fries got up, then offered their hand to Harris, who declined it at first, but upon realizing he was too weak to get up himself, he groggily took their hand. Kaela could have sworn she saw red on his face- unless he was still in that kind of fever-state. Oh well, he was suffering anyway and Kaela liked that.

After what seemed like decades, they finally exited the damn room. Good, Kaela was getting claustrophobic in there with all the mystery objects that well could have been alien contraptions. The three made it to the door leading outside of Xavier’s house along with the others. They seemed relieved that they were finally there. 

“About time.” Izaiah rolled his eyes. “Wanna hear about the slur I made for the zombies?-” 

“Nope! Everyone present and accounted for?” Fries quickly denied, looking around the group. “Should I do a role call?-” 

“No! We’re fine!” Now it was Fries’ turn to get interrupted. Piper rolled her eyes. “We’re all here. Me, Macy and Xavier checked while you two were taking sweet time in there.” 

Fries sighed. “Sorry about that..” They apologized, before looking at the group, then out the door window. Kaela noticed a couple of eyes on Tolu and Harris, since they were the ones who inhaled the spores, and they seemed restless. Well- more restless than the others, that is.

“Are we ready to go now?” Fries asked the group, and everyone surprisingly cheered. 

“I can’t wait to smack a mimic with a lightsaber!!” Daphne squealed. 

“I’m so excited to kill something!” Xavier giggled. 

Fries sighed but managed a smile at everyone’s responses. “Well, I’ll take it, I guess.” They chuckled, looking back outside. It was dark out. And I mean dark. “Just no killing unless absolutely necessary, got it? I don’t want any of you accidentally hurting each other.” Everyone was bummed out about that news, and a series of groans and complaints waved through the group.

Fries rolled their eyes. “Yeah, boo hoo. Anyways, we’re all ready to go?” 

Everyone seemed to be ready.

“Well, let’s go then. Oh and keep your eyes and ears out. It’s hella dark outside.” 

- - - - - - -

Kaela thought nights were alright. Being a night owl herself, she really didn’t mind them.

Holy shit did that change as they were walking towards Tolu’s house.

Not going to lie, she thought it was pretty peaceful so far, but crawl was basically everywhere. It was everywhere in their town, which was probably why it was so fucking dangerous in here when the outbreak had happened. Also probably why no one came to help them yet. 

Kaela pushed back those thoughts in the back of their mind. Fries was leading the group, despite loathing the fact that they don’t have a clear view on everyone. But they were still pushed to the front of the group anyways, Harris and Piper close behind. 

Kaela was busy studying the nearby ground as Macy caught up to her from the end of the group. She tapped her arm, garnering Kaela’s attention before whispering in her ear, “I’m gonna go visit my house real quick. Can you join me?” 

“You know you can’t do that.” Kaela replied, not mclovin what Macy was brewing up in her crib. 

“I know, and I don’t really care.” Macy huffed. “This sword shitting stinks. I want my Shinobu sword.” 

Kaela deadpanned at her. “You want to risk your life… so you can get a better sword?” 

“Uh, duh !” Macy rolled her eyes. “I’ll be quick!! Just come with me!” By now, the two of them were far behind the group, and they were slowly getting further away. 

Kaela sighed. “Sorry, Macy. I can’t do that.” She muttered, avoiding Macy’s eyes. She glanced towards the group that was slowly getting out of focus. “Maybe ask Harris or Piper or something.” 

Macy huffed, biting the inside of her cheek. “Harris is being fucking restrained, so I can’t talk to him without talking to Freiah. Same with Piper since she’s ahead of the group as well. 

And, seriously?? Fine- you know what? I’ll just go on my own then.” 

“How about you don’t go at all?” Kaela suggested, facepalming. “It’s not that hard-” She was cut off by Daphne calling out her name and waving them over. Luckily, not every single person in the group noticed and continued on as usual, but it was still a sign for her and Macy to hurry up. 

Kaela sighed. “C’mon, let’s go.” Then she quickly jogged up to Daphne. They glanced behind them to check on if Macy was coming. She seemed to be hesitating going to her house, as the group was passing through the entrance of where Macy lived. Then, Polly started talking, and Kaela felt obliged to listen. 

And she did for a good second or so, but the night seemed to be getting darker, and it was a bit unnerving with the fact that literally anything could come out and kill all eighteen of them now. Kaela lost track of where Macy was, since she last saw her near her house, then the darkness just sort of- took over. 

‘Maybe she made her way towards the front of the group’ Kaela thought just as Parker stumbled behind her, almost causing her trip over. 

“Parker?? What the fuck?!” Daphne snapped, checking if Kaela was okay and all. But Parker wasn’t looking there, no. He was looking at the tall figure with a dog head in the shadows. 

- - - - - - -

Analog Horror was fun and all- until it was real. 

That’s what Kaela thought when she saw the dog-mimic-creature thing. It was as tall as a mimic would be, but the head was a dog’s head, Harris’ dog’s head. It must have followed them. Yay, how wonderful. 

The group was silent so far, just staring at the thing in horror, until Fries whispered out: 

“Everyone, do not attack… Let’s just back away slowly..” 

“We can’t kill it yet?” Xavier complained. 

“Back. Away. Slowly. ” Fries pressed, keeping their eyes on everyone around them. “We don’t know if it’s-” 

Suddenly, the dog-creature thing lunged straight at the end of the group, emanating screams from practically everyone. Daphne, being the girlboss she is, swings her lightsaber at its head, stunning it for a moment, before everyone booked it.

It was hard running amongst seventeen other people and not almost lose your footing. Kaela was a pretty fast runner herself, already close to the front of the group despite being near the end a second ago. She was already catching up with Piper, also a quick runner despite her heavy load to carry, and they were just about to make it past Kaela’s house. 

Kaela made the mistake of looking behind her, and seeing the absolute abomination the creature was. It was alternating between running on two legs, and all four limbs at the same time- which looked scary but more goofy than ever. 

The creature seemed to be catching up with the end of the group that was falling behind, which was terrifying. Kaela cried out to Claire, who was just within the creature’s grasp. Claire snapped her head around to be faced with the thing reaching out to her, and without second thought, slashed at it with her saw. Huh, Claire was good with that thing. 

Everyone saw that the action had slowed the creature thing down. A small wave of celebration rang through the district twelve citizens, but then they realized that they still needed to get to Tolu’s. 

“Keep going!” Piper cried, continuing to run as if her life depended on it (which it kind of sort of did). Isaiah was a long way ahead of them, but he turned back and waited for the rest of the group to catch up like the gentleman he sometimes is.

It seemed to be decades until everyone was standing in front of Tolu’s house. 

“Woah- Tolu, your house is huge!!” Lael gasped, catching his breath as he looked up at the tall, wooden structure. 

“So I’ve been told.” Tolu scoffed. She was still sick with the spores, but she seemed to be pushing on, staying strong. 

Unlike SOMEONE Kaela knows………..

“Wait- Elaina, Piper.” Tolu realizes, head snapping from the sidewalk as if they could be attacked again, to the group (specifically Elaina and Piper). “Did you get my keys when you were getting stuff from our lockers..?” 

… Uh oh. 

“Oh, c’mon!!” Tolu groaned, anger rising up. 

“Well- sorry! You didn’t say you had keys that we needed to use!!” Piper countered, responding with a dangerous level of sass. “You said that you ‘didn’t have much’ when we asked, so apologies that we didn’t get that!” 

“Guys.” Xavier lamented. “That doesn’t matter! We need to get inside this place before we-” 

Footsteps echoed from the sidewalk. 

“Okay, we should get in, now.” Fries squeaked, and everyone clambered at the door of the house. 

“How do we get this open?!” 

“Does anyone have a bobby pin??”

“I don’t wanna die yet- i’ve never been to Disneyland before!!” 

“Piper- you’ve never been to Disneyland?”

“Stop reminding me of the dark parts of my life!!” 

“Guys!” Fries exclaimed, grabbing the attention of everyone. Elaina was pulling the garage door up so they could all crawl under. How?-

“Elaina you genius ! Oh shit.” Xavier started, but was cut off by the dog-mimic-creature-zombie thing nearing closer. At this point, everyone could hear its footsteps and breathing. 

“Everyone under!” Fries ordered, and no one argued with them. They managed that about three-four kids could get under at the same time, and Fries made sure they did that quickly. 

After Kaela rolled under, she realized how much she felt like passing out, probably from not taking her meds. Woops. Fortunately, Daphne was there to keep her steady. Everyone that had rolled under the garage gathered up in the corner of the garage, waiting for the rest of the group to go through. 

“Where are they.?” Polly murmured, before a loud crashing sound, followed by a scream or two rang out from outside. Everyone shut up again, then Fries rolled under the garage door. They were panting and when it clicked to them that they were inside the garage, they immediately opted for out. 

“Shit!-” They swore, before trying to make their way back out of the garage, but they weren’t able to do that before getting jumpscared by Xavier rolling from under. 

Xavier was clutching the left part of their face. A small bit of tears rolled down the other side, as blood rolled from between their fingers and- holy shit. 

Fries wasted no time, practically pouncing on their friend and then bombarding them with concern. Soon, everyone was doing the same. Hell, it was just like the nose incident yesterday. 

Suddenly, Elaina rolled under the garage door, leaving it falling to the ground after she let go. A hand from the creature almost got to her, but immediately got crushed under the impact of the door, leaving the creature howling in pain outside. 

She rushed towards Xavier’s side and checked up on them. Kaela noticed that she had lesser bruises and injuries compared to the other two, but maybe that was just from her not fighting much. Kaela found it interesting but also suspicious how Elaina managed to hold a whole garage door open for that long, but her theorin’ time was interrupted by Fries urging for medical assistance for their friend. 

‘Guess my brainstorming has to wait for later.’ Kaela thought as she held the door open for a heavily injured Xavier, an unnervingly calm Elaina, an overthinking Fries, and others who have seen way too much for four in the morning. 

‘Wait- where’s Macy?’

Chapter Text

Tolu didn’t see the reason why she had to be contained in her own home. It didn’t make sense! This was her house, dammit! 

Elaina and Fries had taken Xavier to her bathroom to fix up their bleeding, which looked very painful, to be honest. Tolu didn’t know if she should feel guilty. She did smack Xavier in the nose yesterday, that wasn’t a great memory. Then, Fries had said to keep her and Harris inside some other room until they could force a couple of pills down their throats. Since when were they in charge?! 

That didn’t matter, though, because here she was, trapped in a room with Mr. Blue Hair, here. 

‘Ugh, just fucking awesome.’ 

Tolu banged on the door. “Dorito!! Let. Me. OUT!!” 

“Sorry Tolu!! Can’t do that ‘til you’re off the drugs!” 

“It’s not drugs! I’m not Elaina!! It’s just some stupid spores!! Now let me out!” 

When Tolu didn’t hear anything on the other side, she scoffed, and leaned her back against the door. She would have gladly bust the door down, but one: this was her room, so she didn’t really want to harm it. And two: the damn spores were making it hard to move. 

“Godammit!!” She swore, punching the door. 

“That’s a bad word!” Harris said from the corner of the room. Tolu forgot he was there. 

“Shut the fuck up you blue biscuit.” Tolu rolled her eyes. She wasn’t in the mood for Harris’ shenanigans. Fries should have put a leash on that thing. He was annoying at times. 

Harris only rolled his eyes in response. “I’m gonna sleep now, I barely got to sleep with Freiah waking me up so damn early for inhaling air.” He said, shuffling to a more comfortable position in the corner of Tolu’s room. 

“I’m gonna kill her-them when we finally get out.” Tolu grumbled, trying at the door again. “Goddami-“ 

The door opened up, revealing Kaela, who managed an enthusiastic smile towards Tolu. “Hiii!!” she grinned at Tolu, but upon spotting Harris, no more smiles. 

“Ew.” She said simply, before turning her head back towards Tolu. “Anyways- since Fries is still busy with Xavier dying for the second time, they gave me the pills for the spores to give y’all!” She displayed two pills in her right hand and a glass of water in her other hand. 

“Do I have to share a glass of water with Tolu?” Harris complained, very much not sleeping. “What about germs?” 

“You can suck it up!” Kaela snapped, which generated an evil giggle from Tolu. 

“Anyways..” Kaela started, shutting the door behind her. “Fries said that you have to swallow the pill then drink the water, yada yada, pretty much regular pill stuff.” She shrugged, handing a pill to Tolu. “Here, you can take the first one. I want to stay as far away from stinky Blue Hair and Pronouns over here as much as I can.” 

“Shut up beta.” Harris rolled his eyes, and Kaela flipped him off before turning back to Tolu, forcing her to take the pill from her hand. 

Tolu looked at the pill, very very enthusiastic about it. “It looks like a tiny whitewashed shart.” She commented. Kaela then wheezed so hard Tolu thought she would suck all the air out of her lungs and die. 

“Just take it anyway.” Kaela said between giggles. 

The drug inhaler took the pill from her daughter’s hand. She observed the pill for another long second, mind swarming with insults that would traumatize a starving Victorian child. Finally, she chucked the pill in her mouth, swallowed it whole, swiped the water from Kaela’s hand and downed it. She consumed a good half of the liquid before sighing and shoving it back in the hands of the tall Filipino one, who stared at her in either confusion or amazement. Probably both. 

“Done. Can I leave this room now?” Tolu deadpanned, and Kaela blinked back at her. 

“I-uh.. No idea. Maybe wait another.. ten minutes or so?”

“I ALMOST CHOKED MYSELF JUST TO STAY IN HERE FOR ANOTHER TEN MINUTES?!” Tolu groaned, exasperated, facepalming herself. 

“It’s better than literally dying!” Kaela reasoned, rolling her eyes. “Now calm your demons so I can force feed white shit into Harris’ throat.” 

“Never say that sentence again.”

“Noted.” 

Tolu then made way for Kaela to get to Harris. She stared at the closed door. Tolu was sure that it was unlocked after Kaela had made her way inside, which was a clear escape route for her to leave this godforsaken room. But at the same time, what would she achieve if she did leave? Not much, really, just to get out of the room.

She turned to see what Kaela and Harris were up to, since they were getting pretty loud.  

“Just take the fucking pill!!” Kaela was shrieking. “I’m not like Fries!! I will gladly shove this thing down your throat!!” 

“Just let me hold it myself!! I’m not a baby!” Harris screamed back, attempting to kick Kaela away. 

“You sure as hell act like one, though.” Kaela rolled her eyes, before Harris took the pill from her hand and shoved her back. 

“Shut up beta.” 

“Can you stop saying that?!” 

“Nuh uh.” 

Tolu had to hold her hand to her mouth in order for her giggles to not be heard, but they slipped out anyways. Fortunately Kaela and Harris didn’t mind because they kept bickering. 

Tolu got too drowsy to understand most of it without her senses fucking up, but she did get the idea that Harris was hesitant to take the pill (probably because he’d neglected taking the pills beforehand because he didn’t want to take the damn things but shh) and Kaela was threatening to force the pill down his throat. She doesn’t remember Harris actually swallowing the pill, but apparently he did at some point, because Kaela was fake cheering for him. 

“That tastes like shit.” Harris complained. “Zero out of ten stars.”

“I liked you better when you were emo.” Kaela sighed, as if it were the saddest thing to ever happen. “You talked less.”

Before Harris was about to argue back with something very smart, like ‘shut up beta,’ Tolu but in. “So can we leave this room now?” 

Kaela gave it a thought before shrugging. “I guess. I mean, Fries didn’t say anything against it.” 

“Who cares what Freiah thinks? I wanna get out.” Harris commented, moving to get up. 

“I thought you wanted to sleep?” Tolu questioned.

“Damn divorce era.” Kaela blinked. 

Harris shot her a glare before standing up. Now with all three of them standing, no one did anything. 

“Can we leave now?” Tolu complained. “I’m not gonna wait for an answer, actually, bye bitches.” She announced, going for the door and opening it, not waiting for the other two to follow as she stepped out. 

- - - - -

First thing on Tolu’s mind was to yell at Fries, but after realizing that their kids were so close to wrecking her house, she decided that they were more important. 

“Get off of that!” She hollered when Lael was trying to climb on her piano. Seriously, Fries needed to get their kids under control (and on a leesh). 

“Tolu??” Lael blinked, surprised that she’s out of the room. 

“Ah! The drug inhaler’s back!!” Izaiah said with fake panic, pretending to shield himself from Tolu. 

“Haha, very funny.” Tolu said, totally laughing along with the oh so hilarious joke Izaiah made. “Now get off my piano!!” 

When Lael finally did, Tolu thought she should check up on how the others were treating her home. She shot a glare towards the korean, then walked off. She spotted Piper in her kitchen, checking out some of the food. Tolu warned her not to take anything yet, and she magically obliged. Good thing the blonde didn’t argue, because Tolu felt like she could punch the life out of anyone at any given moment, so an argument wasn’t the most appealing. 

Tolu wandered some more, the side effects from the spores wearing off by the second. She saw Polly and Claire hanging out in that weird glass section of her house with all her family’s bikes, old scooters and shit (it makes more sense if you’ve been there before😕). They didn’t seem to be destroying anything so far, though, so she left them alone. Everyone seemed to be somewhere around the house, but Tolu didn’t feel like checking all 2837391 rooms in her house just to make sure Dorito wasn’t making a bonfire in the basement. So she didn’t. 

Finally, the moment Tolu’s been dreading: talking to Fries. Well, they actually just walked out of the bathroom, their mind in a daze and bumped into Tolu, which- whatever, it’ll do. 

“Tolu!” Fries blinked, before frowning. “Aren’t you supposed-“ 

“I took your stupid pills, I should be able to walk in my own house.” Tolu cut them off, rolling her eyes.

Fries shrugged. “Alright.” They didn’t argue as much as Tolu wanted them to have. She wanted to scream at them, for God’s sake! And she couldn’t just scream at someone when they’re not going to argue back, that would just make her feel bad for the other person, which Tolu did not want to do right now.

“So..” Tolu whistled, out of ideas. “How’s Xavier?” 

Fries’ expression darkened. “I can barely look at blood without feeling my stomach twist, so I got Elaina to do most of the medical shit while I told her what to do. Xavier’s saying that they’re okay, but I’m not entirely sure..” 

“Oh..” Tolu wasn’t sure if she should feel sorry for Xavier, or annoyed at how stupid they were for thinking they could take on some mutated dog-mimic thing. “But they’re alive, right?” 

“Oh! Yeah, pfft- of course!” Fries managed to laugh, although it did sound kindaaaa forced. “They’re alive and breathing just fine! Just- erm..” 

“Erm? God, don’t tell me you’re gonna nerd out on me, man.” 

“Fine! It’s just that the left part of their face is really… damaged.” 

Cue silence and tension that could potentially kill a man!! (*cough* Xavier *cough*)

“I should do a roll call!” Fries then realized, earning a groan from Tolu. 

“‘Kay- do we have to?” She complained. “We’re all here!” 

“You don’t know that. Someone could have gotten lost on the way! We need to know!” 

“You mean you need to know.” 

Fries ignored her. “I need all of us in the living room. I’ll gather everyone I can. You should do the same unless you’re fine with Parker getting eaten alive outside.”

- - - - - -

Tolu was surprised at how quickly everyone got into the living room in under ten minutes. She expected a lot more arguing and holding up but whatever. 

She spotted Xavier with Elaina on the corner of the couch. They had an eye patch over their left eye where they got hit, and seemed pretty upset, but Tolu didn’t have time to ponder too long on that when Fries began the roll call. 

“Macy.” They started. 

Nothing. No response. 

“Maybe she’s in the bathroom.?” Piper suggested. 

“Yeah, she’s probably practicing her old grandma skills in private.” Harris grinned. 

“I liked you better when you were a spore inhaler. You talked less.” Piper deadpanned. 

“That’s the second time- seriously what is with you guys?!” Harris rolled his eyes, but mewed at Piper nonetheless.

“I swear to god Harris-“ 

“OH SHIT.” Kaela shrieked, which caught everyone so off guard that it was dead silent in the massive room for a good five seconds (or something- Tolu wasn’t counting, she doesn’t waste time on that shit). 

“Ohhhh shit oh shit oh shit..” Kaela muttered under her breath. Tolu couldn’t tell what her daughter was feeling at the moment. Anger? Worry? Fear? A desperate need for a therapy session? 

“Kaela.. What do you mean by ‘oh shit.’” Fries asked, each word sounding like some sort of threat. They clutched their necklace tightly as they stared at Kaela. 

Kaela blinked back at Fries, then fiddled with her hands nervously. 

“Kaela.” Tolu urged. “What do you mean?” 

Just as Kaela opened her mouth to speak, a booming sound rang through the house: A banging at the door loud enough to make Godzilla die of a heart attack. 

“Someone go open it!” Claire yelled. 

“Yeah, open the door during a zombie apocalypse! Great idea Claire! We can all die together as a family!” Tega yelled back, pure sarcasm dripping in his tone, as it always did. 

“That sounds nice, actually.” Fries commented, before the pounding got louder, then they shrieked.

“We need to sacrifice someone! I vote Harris!” Izaiah suggested, and like, three other people agreed. 

“I did not consent!!” Harris gasped. 

“I think I’ll vote Izaiah, actually!” Tolu hollered, glaring at the kid. 

Before anyone could start fighting about who’s going to be the so-called ‘sacrifice’, Elaina stood up and casually walked over to the door where the noise was coming from. Xavier tensed up.

“Elaina! No-“ 

Elaina opened the door, and there stood Macy, clutching a different sword than the one she left Xavier’s house with. She was panting heavily and had some bruises that Tolu did not remember seeing on her an hour ago. 

“Macy!” Kaela screamed, and Elaina awkwardly got her inside and shut the door behind them. Tolu followed Kaela as she stomped over. “Are you okay?!” 

“Yeah, I’m-I’m good..” She wheezed. “Damn those ice spice zombies.” 

“Are you seriously making jokes about that right now!?” Tolu snapped, hitting Macy ‘lightly’ on the shoulder for her stupid ass decisions. “You could have died! Wait why am I worrying so much I’m not Fries.” 

Fries blinked. “Is that an insult or..” 

“Yes, it was.” Tega butted in, strutting over towards Macy, Elaina, Tolu and Kaela. He pointed a finger at Macy. “How dare you do such a thing young lady! You had us worried sick!” 

“What the fu-“ 

“Ah! Don’t give me that attitude! You’re grounded!” 

Macy blinked in confusion at what was happening to her. “Freiah, why is your kid sassing me out like this? Should I be concerne-“ 

“Macy, I’m glad you’re okay and all- but what the fuck!?” Kaela snapped, holding Macy’s shoulders and shaking the life out of her. “I told you not to go, you idiot!! But nooo- you just had to!!” 

Macy groaned. “I’m still alive, aren’t I?” 

“Unfortunately.” chimed in Harris and Macy flipped him off from the other side of the room.

“I’m going to kill you.” Kaela blinked, staring at the artificial ginger. 

“Grah.” 

“Stop saying that!!” Tolu complained, before sighing and looking around the place. “You know what? This is my house. I should be able to boss you guys around, see how you like that, huh?” 

“Oh, so are you just gonna run this like a military camp?” Lael joked, but immediately regretted it after Tolu actually seemed to think about the idea. “That was a joke!! Do not run this like a military camp!” 

“You know what? It’s been a long day.. or- night.” Fries sighed, pinching the bridge of their nose. “How about we all go to sleep? Since we totally had some today.” 

“Hell yeah! Thank you, Freiah.” Macy thanked. Tolu thought she was going to drop down on her knees and start praising Fries for the simple suggestion, but luckily, the fake ginger stayed standing, and in Kaela’s grasp. 

“Let’s deal with this later. I got chased halfway here by some weird ass looking dog mimic thing. I might be tripping but it kinda looked like Harris’ dog, not gonna lie.” 

“…What?!” 

- - - - -

Tolu stared at her phone screen (don’t ask where or how everyone got their devices, this is my fic i do what i want). She didn’t have any wifi, which was unfortunate. But apparently, according to Fries (Tolu was starting to hate them, at this point), that wasn’t something worthy of complaining for- or whatever. 

She, Piper, Elaina, Dorito, Polly, Claire, Harris and Kaela were sleeping on the top balcony floor thing that showcased the grand view of her home (you just have to be there to know what it looks like😭), while everybody else slept in the living room below. Most of the kids sleeping in the living room consisted of the ones that “needed punishment,” (a rule laid out by yours truly, Tolu) and the others. Macy was immediately thrown in there, but she didn’t complain much. Lael, Parker and Izaiah did, though (and they did a lot). Fries and Xavier had volunteered for the first watch, Lochlan joined along with them.  

Tolu sighed, and put her phone down. She stared at the ceiling above her, feeling the spores infection leave her body. Damn, this was all so.. weird, to put it lightly. Why did this all have to happen? And why are the mimics so overpowered now? God- she wished she could just stomp out there and punch a mimic's face just for existing at this point. Everything made her so angry, and she wanted to do something so badly- she couldn't take it. 

Just then, a quick scream rang out from.. somewhere in the house, and she sprang up immediately. She heard something run against a wall, and then Fries’ frantic voice. Gee, how wonderful- she can’t even sleep in her own goddamn house!! 

Before she knew it, Xavier was settling down right beside her, holding the right side of their head and grumbling out swears that would get them cancelled on twitter for. The dude was idiotic enough to run into a wall when a mimic jumpscared them through the window. That marks their third injury throughout this whole thing, yay. 

Elaina then volunteered to take Xavier’s place, since she didn’t feel like sleeping anyways. Fries didn’t object and let her tag along. 

After the fiasco, everyone in Tolu’s group kept talking and yapping and it was driving Tolu nuts. Finally, they shut up, totally not because she yelled at them too. 

Tolu sighed, then covered herself with her blanket some more. But something was bothering her…

 ‘Oh, Dammit. Why the hell not?’ 

“You alright?” She muttered, turning over to face Xavier, aka, the one she’s been arguing with throughout this whole thing. She can’t believe she was asking them this. 

“Yeah.” They shrugged, but Tolu could see the exhaustion in their eyes. Well, their eye. Their left eye was still covered up by the bandage from earlier. 

“How’s your eye treating you?” 

“Eh, not bad. At least I look super badass now.” 

Tolu scoffed, but was grateful for Xavier making light of this situation. “Yeah, very badass of you running into a wall after a mimic jumpscared you.” She rolled her eyes. 

“Hey! It caught me off guard, alright!” Xavier grumbled, turning away, but Tolu could see how disturbed they were about the thing. 

She didn’t press on it. “We should probably get to sleep now..” She whispered, looking around. She couldn’t tell if the others were asleep or not, but it didn’t really matter if they were. 

“I guess.” Xavier sighed and Tolu took that as a sign to settle down in her make-shift bed which was barely more comfortable than a cardboard box. 

“Goodnight boss.” 

“‘Night Tolu.” 

Chapter Text

Tega did not like getting woken up. No exceptions. Of course he was going to be grumpy at eleven when everyone decided to wake up. 

He kind of zoned out for a good portion of Fries’ speech thing that they had decided to make after waking everybody up. All that was on his mind at that point was sleep, sleep and Lael shutting up. Ugh, this apocalypse thingy was totally gonna get in the way of him getting therapy- how were they going to pay for a therapist that isn’t even alive?? Bullshit. 

Luckily, Tega didn’t need to think at that moment, because before he knew it, food was placed in front of him. He would have complained about the cereal being bland, but he decided not to waste his voice talking to these peasants. 

“Ew, this cereal tastes terrible.” Izaiah complained, because unlike Tega, he wasted a lot of stuff. Like his life, for example. 

“Suck it up! Would you rather eat this or die?” Piper spat, since she was the one who served the shitty cereal anyways. 

“Shut up woman.” Izaiah replied, which earned him a smack from Claire; unfortunately Lael laughed at that, and he was rewarded with a death glare from Fries. After a couple of giggles, everyone just continued as usual. 

About a second or two in, Tega decided that this silence was terrible. The group was never silent like this! Children these days. 

“Aren’t we going to talk about Macy sneaking off last night or..” He started, hoping for some drama. 

“Goddamn you Tega!” Macy groaned, which was her way of saying ‘how dare you remind everyone about what I did!! I’m gonna get a long boring lecture now!’ Tega grinned maliciously. 

The fake ginger still had the mark from when Tolu punched her awake earlier, nearly scaring everyone (Fries) half to death (including the fact that Fries’ kids thought she was actually dead). ‘You wouldn’t wake up,’ Tolu said. ‘And you thought getting your Shinobu sword alone last night was a good idea!’

“Oh, yeah.” Freiah sighed, swallowing down their cereal. “So-“ 

“Macy, why the fuck did you do that?!” Tolu interrupted, clearly not out for mercy right now. You could easily tell the difference between how both Fries and Tolu were handling the situation, Fries being all goody-two-shoes while Tolu was about ready to hit you to where the sun don’t shine. 

“Wow- geez Tolu!” Macy replied, holding her hands up in a fake surrender. “I just wanted to get my Shinobu sword!! Is that too much to ask?” 

“Yes! You could have died.” Tolu reasoned, shooting an icy glare at the imposter ginger. 

“…But I didn’t-“ 

“Macy!!” Kaela snapped. 

Tega was fully invested in what was going down when James tapped him lightly on the shoulder. He turned to James with a 😒 expression. “What?” 

“Are you going to finish your food?” James asked in a whisper, gesturing to Tega’s unfinished bowl of cereal. 

Tega looked at the cereal and shrugged. He handed the bowl to James. “Nah, it tastes worse than dust- don’t ask me how I know what that tastes like.” 

“Uh.. okay..” James blinked, looking at the two bowls he now had to finish. 

“Now be silent so I can watch this drama go down.” 

“I- what?” 

“Shhh!” 

About now, the argument had elevated. Tolu was pretty much screaming at the top of their lungs, and Macy was still being, well, Macy, defending herself with information that wouldn’t defend her in any way. Also, more people were joining in the argument, which made everything more entertaining at the price of being louder than a siren.

Despite all this, Tega wasn’t really listening to what they were saying (yes, he knows he started it, but it was morning, for god’s sake!). All he knew was that everyone was angry at Macy, and Tega decided he was now, too. 

“Yeah, Macy!” He said at a random point during the argument. 

“Tega what the fuck??” Macy replied. 

Tega only shrugged, trying to suppress his growing smirk. “I just wanted to join in.” 

Then the fight went on for a good five minutes more, then Tega thought this was getting boring. It was mostly the same thing over and over again, or maybe it wasn’t- Tega stopped caring after Macy told him off. 

“You know what? Kids- go downstairs or something, this is a problem for the grown ups.” Tolu said, pinching the bridge of her nose. 

“What?! How is this-“ 

“Shut up Macy!” 

Macy grumbled. “Rude..” 

“Why can’t we stay though?” Daphne complained. 

“Yeah, I wanted to see bloodshed!” Izaiah sighed. 

“Wha- no!” Piper blinked. “Just- do what Tolu said and go downstairs. We need to talk about this- just us, sorry.” The blonde glanced towards everybody before frowning. “I take that back, I’m not sorry. Now leave!” 

Lael wasn’t going to back down easily. “No! I don’t want to!” 

“Lael.” Fries repeated in a hauntingly calm tone.

“…Okay fine!” And just like that, Lael forfeited towards the basement. 

“You too, Kaela.” Tolu sighed, and her daughter groaned, but picked up her feet and moved along anyway. Tega also joined in with them, but before heading down to the basement, he stuck his head out to try to catch a glimpse of what they were saying. Unfortunately, his spying was cut short when Daphne forced him to move along. That was terrible. 

- - - -

Okay, now things are getting interesting. 

For starters, Lael fell off the swing of Tolu’s basement as was currently having a pity party about it in the corner of the room. Oh, and Kaela might be a mimic. 

“-you barely slept last night!” Claire was saying. Everyone had forced Kaela into the chair that has some sort of cover thing over it, and closed the cover with her inside, which seemed really uncomfortable to stay in because of how small the chair was. “Your eyes were bloodshot and you looked like you were ready to tear anyone limb to limb!” 

“Not to mention you’re tall!” Lochlan added.  

“How does being tall make you a mimic?” Tega questioned, and the other shrugged. 

“All mimics are tall.” 

“But not all tall people are mimics!” Parker rolled his eyes. 

“Are you sure?” Tega asked, thinking about Elaina and the way she’d been acting recently.

“Whatever! We’re getting off topic here!..” Polly snapped, and turned towards the chair where Kaela was being held. “Kaela- are. You. A. Mimic?” 

“No! And get me out of this thing! It’s so uncomfortable!!” Kaela complained.

“She’s fibbing! Burn the witch!” Izaiah yelled back.

“No!” Everyone (except Lael who was still being emo) screamed back. 

“We’re not going to do that, Izaiah.” Claire sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “We just need to make sure Kaela isn’t a mimic.” 

“Oh, do you need me to list reasons why I’m not a mimic?” Kaela challenged from inside the chair. 

“Yeah, that would help.” Tega shrugged. To be completely honest, Tega thought it would be really funny if Kaela was a mimic, so her turning out not to be one wouldn’t be that exciting, but whatever. 

Kaela huffed. “Well, first off! I’m not… red.” 

… 

“And?” Daphne asked. 

“I’M NOT A MIMIC LET ME OUT OF THIS STUPID THING!!” Kaela shouted, impatient. 

“She’s getting feisty, I think we should set her ablaze before she uses her scary Asian powers to curse us.” Izaiah requested, which earned him a rightful smack in the face from Polly. 

“This seems pretty serious, guys.” James muttered. “I mean, it’s a bit much to accuse Kaela of being a mimic-“ 

“Thank you!!” 

“-but I think we should still be careful around her.. Sorry Kaela.” 

“Dammit!” Kaela fussed, and from the shadows from the chair, Tega could tell she was crossing her arms. “Just let me out already! Even if I were a mimic, I would have eaten Harris first!” 

“Uh, okay..?” James chuckled awkwardly. 

Izaiah seemed to think about it, then nodded. “That’s true. If she were a real mimic, the hate for blue hair and pronouns would have driven her to kill Harris immediately, so completely a mimic or not. Kaela isn’t a mimic.” 

“Well, that’s one way to prove your innocence I guess?” Tega shrugged, as Kaela threw the chair cover up, and now looked up at everybody with disdain. Well, everyone who had accused her of being a mimic which was, erm- kind of everyone, yeah, everyone. 

“Yeah, but if you’re a mimic, sorry Kaela.” Daphne nodded, pretending to be sorrowful during these trying times. 

“Should I be concerned about what you mean by that?” Kaela questioned, crawling out of the chair, and as if on command, everyone backed up. 

“Yes.” Tega replied almost immediately. What can he say? He liked messing with everyone. 

“Well, okay.” Kaela grumbled, but didn’t complain about it any further. 

She opened her mouth to speak, but suddenly Xavier’s voice rang out from the stairs, ordering everyone up. Then they skedaddled. Everyone in the basement looked around before all scurrying like the little rats they were up the stairs like some race- even Lael stopped being depressed to join in. 

‘Ugh, kids these days are so competitive..’ Tega thought as he pushed Lael out of the way so he could beat him up the stairs. 

- - - - -

“So, here’s what’s going to happen..” Was how to start a long rant that no one would listen to. 

Fries was explaining about how they were going to survive now. Everybody who had stayed upstairs seemed to have gotten the Macy problem calmed down for now, which was a relief. But now they were all caught in a wonderful speech about how they’re going to salvage food or whatever. 

“-Piper and Harris will be our cooks, since Piper volunteered and she threatened to kill us if we didn’t, and Harris wanted to. Plus, two cooks could really be helpful.” They said, and Piper grinned, looking very proud of herself for that one. 

“Moving on, we’ve all thought it would be a good idea to have people on night watch. We’re gonna do that Percy-Jackson style by having three people, since we all thought it would be a nice balance.” 

Everyone seemed to agree so far, so Fries continued. “We’re going to stay here as long as we can, and while we’re here, we might be able to figure out what the hell is going on, and also help prepare for anything yet to come.” They finished with a sigh. “Any questions?” 

Izaiah raised his hand. 

“Yeah?” 

“Are you and Harris going to reproduce the city?” 

Everyone stared at him for a good second or so, while Lael died of laughter.

“…I’m going to kill myself before that happens.” Fries decided. 

“Me too..” Harris agreed.  

Well, that was something. 

- - - - -

It’s been around an hour since that happened, and the clock read around…two? Tega hadn’t checked in a while. Anyhoo, everyone was doing their own thing. Tega, Lael, Lochlan, Isaiah and James were crowded around the big window overlooking Tolu’s backyard, along with the park that was right beyond that. 

“I don’t think the crawl being so close is very safe..” James muttered. It was raining now, like, pretty heavily, but the red vine-resembling plant was easily visible nonetheless. There was a lot of that in the park behind Tolu’s house.

“Yeah, that’s probably concerning.” Lochlan shrugged. “We can just fight the mimics though, right?” 

“Have you seen the mimics?!” Lael gasped. “They’re huge! They can rip you limb from limb!” 

“Yeah, remember the video I showed you of that like- a week ago?” Tega giggled. 

“Oh, don’t remind me..” James sighed with a light chuckle, shaking his head. “Now that was traumatizing..”

“I found it calming.” Lochlan shrugged. 

“A man was literally screaming out in pain as a mimic ate his insides out.” 

“I could fall asleep to it!” 

“Anyway,” Tega rolled his eyes. “How do you guys think all of this happened? Like the mimic-zombies and all.” 

That gave the group something to think about for a good second.

“Didn’t the warning say something about like- climate change?” Isaiah mentioned, and the group stared at him in disbelief. He held his hands up in surrender. “Just a thought!” 

“Well, yeah, I think they did mention something about some other thing infecting the crawl and toxicating the creatures.” James shrugged, not sure himself. “You were on the right path, though. It was probably like an acid or something that made its way in the crawl, then spread.” 

“You guys are being too smart right now, I can’t keep up.” Lael complained. 

“Maybe smarten up, then.” Tega snickered, and Lael seemed like he was about to punch Tega (Tega knew he could never), when a knock at the main door sounded out. 

“Uh..” Lael blinked, completely forgetting about his anger. “Wha-“ 

“Hello?” A girl’s voice rang out, which stunned everybody who was near enough to hear it. 

“…Brynley?!” Piper shrieked from somewhere in the kitchen, before emerging and jogging over towards the door.

“Uh, Piper, I’m not sure if-“ Fries was saying, following close behind the blonde. 

Piper made her way to the door, but before she opened the door, she saw a tall, meaty creature looming outside the door through the side glass next to said door. She promptly froze, unable to move with the sight of the mimic outside the house. 

Unfortunately, the mimic seemed to notice her hesitation, even through the door, and didn’t waste anything. The creature pounded loud at the door, which obviously startled the shit out of everyone. Freiah pulled Piper out of the way of the door out of sheer fear. 

“Who the fuck is knocking at my door?!” Tolu yelled, stomping down the stairs, looking even more furious. “Who do you think you are!? This is my fucking house, you dumb shit!!” She hollered, walking angrily (goofy ass word) towards the door. It kind of reminded Tega of a karen, which made the situation way funnier than it should be.

“Get the fuck off my property you stupid fuck!!” She screamed through the door. Freiah looked surprised at how confident Tolu was with defending her home against the mimics. “Move your skinny meat ass!! Goddamn!” 

The mimic didn’t seem to move, and that only made Tolu angrier. She stomped over to the window that overlooked the pathway of the main door. There stood the mimic that was about to pounce on the door. It noticed Tolu glaring at it through the window, and stared back, that became a strange staring-contest between the two. 

Suddenly, the mimic pounced at the window, but the glass didn’t break and Tolu didn’t budge, just stared back with a look of distaste and her arms crossed.

“Boo hoo, that was shitty! You want to scare me? Maybe think of becoming my mom when I get a low grade.” She challenged, clearly not having it. 

The mimic kept its stare, and no one moved for a second. Elaina went over and stood behind Tolu and joined the staring competition. Almost as soon as Elaina looked in its direction, the mimic seemed to get scared and skedaddled away. 

Tega noticed a hint of confusion and unease on Elaina’s face as the mimic scurried off.

Tolu scoffed. “Beta.” 

“Tolu what was that?!” Piper questioned, although she still shaken up by the fact that mimics can mimic (ha, gottem-) voices now. She made her way towards her angry friend. “You just like- scared it away!” 

“I’m just Him, that’s why.” Tolu boasted, a look of pride on her face now. Elaina blinked diagonally behind her. 

“Yeah, sure...” 

“Ah-ah! What do you mean by that, blondie!?” 

Tega rolled his eyes as Tolu and Piper started arguing as they usually do, with Fries awkwardly trying to diffuse the situation. From what Tega could tell, this was going to last a while. He took in a breath and leaned back, watching.

Oh, how he loved watching shit go down.

Chapter Text

I wasn’t sure what to say. 

My watch told me it was six in the afternoon, but the rain had returned and made the sky a lot darker than it should have been. Me and the others were having the dinner that Piper and Harris cooked for us. It was pretty good, and I was glad they could get along after what seemed like hours of fighting. This meal was a lot better than the breakfast/lunch/brunch we had this morning, which I was thankful for since I had to finish two cereals since Tega was kind enough to lend me his. 

Everyone spoke to each other in hushed voices, conversations ranging from survival tips and advice to the latest fandom debates. I was sitting next to Xavier, listening to them talk about mimics and the strategies to survive an attack by them. 

“Uhm, Xavier? Can mimics mimic voices?” Fries asked. They seemed to be in the middle of a conversation with Piper, who looked pretty uncomfortable at the moment. I knew I couldn’t blame her, though. She had just been tricked by a mimic copying the voice of who I assumed to be her friend. Pretty much everyone saw that happen. I felt bad.

“…Not that I can remember anything..” Xavier muttered, thinking about it. “I don’t think they can, actually. They’re mostly stealth-based during hunts.” 

“Then how did that mimic mimic Brynley’s voice?” Fries questioned again.

“I have no clue.” 

“Hey, Piper.?” I began, when Fries and Xavier started having their own little debate on how the mimics could do such a thing. 

“What?” She sighed. 

“…I just wanted to say sorry about that mimic copying your friend’s voice.” I said, fiddling with the pasta bowl in my hands. “That must have been rough for you.” 

“Oh, it’s fine.” Piper replied, but I wasn’t sure how fine it really was. “But thanks James.” She added

“Oh, no problem. I was just worried.” 

Piper mustered up a small smile for me, and I shot her one back, as well. Just needed to make sure she was okay. 

“Wait- but that doesn’t make any sense?” Xavier was saying when I decided to listen into what they were talking about with Fries now. 

“No but think about it. Mimics kind of like- stalk their prey before eating, right? They learn it’s routine and shit? Maybe it.. evolved or something to learn how to mimic sounds. They already use sounds when hunting, anyway.” Fries theorized, and to be honest, it was a really good reasoning. 

“Yeah, but they use sounds to scare the prey into cornering themselves so that they could eat them. Not exactly luring them in.” Xavier replied. 

“I have no idea, man..” Fries exhaled. “I just.. we need to figure out how the mimic got Brynley’s voice.” 

“What about we worry if Brynley is alive, instead of where the damn mimic got her fucking voice?!” Piper snapped at the two of them, which caught the three of us off guard for a moment. 

“…You’re right, Piper.” Fries sighed. “Wait- your house is close, right? Maybe we could go there tomorrow and try to call her, you have your number, right?” 

“How are we going to call her? We don’t even know if she has internet!” Piper huffed. 

“Well, there’s no harm in trying.” Fries tried to smile. “Plus, even if she doesn’t have internet, I’m sure she’s okay. I’m certain she’s able to survive.” 

Piper seemed about ready to argue with Fries, but she didn’t. “Can I just have a moment? Thanks..” She said before standing up and leaving. 

A second or two after she left, Fries turned to us. “Give her a second.” They said softly, before continuing to eat their pasta. 

I turned back to my own food. Most of it was gone already, which was nice. Although, my guilt for Piper made it hard to finish my meal. I forced myself to eat it anyway, listening to Xavier and Fries talk about whatever was going on with the mimics. 

Before I knew it, everyone had finished eating. Fries forced Lael and Izaiah to do dishes for being… well, Lael and Izaiah, but no one else complained. 

“I think it would be a good idea to practice fighting. Y’know, just in case we have to.” Xavier told everyone in the living room while Fries handed out Uno cards to everybody. “We won’t start now, since we just finished dinner and stuff, but we can start tomorrow. Who else is in?” 

“I would love that!” Tolu grinned a bit too widely. 

“Oh my god- yes!” Daphne giggled. “It’ll be like those scenes in those spy movies!!” 

“Oh my god, it will be!” Fries smiled as they handed out the last cards. “Now, let’s start.” 

- - - - -

Uno was wonderful! If you didn’t count the bloodshed. 

I accidentally started a plus two chain that reached until Polly had to pick up twelve cards, which I felt guilty for until I remembered that she made me pick up four when I was close to an uno, the guilt instantly dissolved

“You guys suck..” She huffed, picking up four more cards from the deck as Tega held back a giggle, as he was the one who caused her to pick up. 

“Does anyone have a watch?” Fries asked, trying to hide their growing grin. 

“Don’t you have one?” Tolu snapped. She got feistier after having her turn skipped for the fifth time in a row. 

“Yeah, but it’s advanced, so I’m not sure if it’s the actual time.” 

“You guys do know that there’s a clock right there, right?” Claire mentioned pointing at said clock, which caused Tolu and Fries to glance over to the thing. 

“Oh, right.” Fries blinked. 

“You idiot.” Tolu rolled her eyes. “Oh, is it my turn?” 

“Not anymore!” Iziah smiled, before placing down another ‘skip your turn’ card. 

“FUCK YOU IZAIAH!”  

Fries awkwardly placed down a red four, then Elaina looked through her hundreds of cards, and started stacking fours. I think a century or two passed until she finally finished, then Xavier placed a pick-up-four for Parker, which ultimately got him pissed. 

“First of all, how dare you.” He scoffed, reaching over and picking up the required amount. “Second of all, sleep with one eye open tonight.” 

“Well, I can only see through one eye, anyway.” Xavier laughed, ‘subtly’ pointing to their eye patch. 

Parker grumbled as Xavier announced the colour was green. Lochlan happily placed down a green nine, Isaiah followed with a red nine. Macy swore at him for changing the colour as she leaned over to pick up a card from the deck, then grumbled when she didn’t get anything useful from that. 

I looked through my cards. Three blues, one yellow, a red skip card and two reds. I contemplated on if I really wanted Harris’ turn to be skipped, but I decided to play nice and placed a red three instead. 

Harris scanned his cards before placing a red skip card. He shot an evil smile towards Kaela who seemed like she wanted to rip out his throat and skewer his head on a stick, but didn’t do much other than swear at him and brood. Daphne patted their shoulder comfortingly before placing an Uno reverse card, which got Kaela’s mood up. She gladly placed down one of the customizable wild cards. The writing from the highlighter that was written years ago by Fries’s brother was fading, but no one bothered to attempt to read what it was.

“Pick up thirty.” Kaela ordered confidently. 

“But the limit’s ten, though!” Harris rolled his eyes. 

“Yeah, the limit’s ten.” Fries repeated, trying to suppress giggles. 

“Ugh- fine! Pick up ten then.” Kaela grumbled, and everyone could tell how upset she was about not being able to force Harris into picking up thirty. 

Unwillingly, Harris reached over and picked up the required amount, as Kaela rambled about how she wanted to give Harris twenty more cards. Harris responded to her taunts with something genius, ‘shut up beta.’ 

“What colour is it?” I asked through chuckles. 

“Hmm… yellow.” 

“Oh, good thing I still have one.” I grinned to myself, placing the yellow card down in the pile. There was a whole yellow phase when all the cards that were placed were yellow, which really took everyone’s yellows. 

“Finally! I have pretty much all yellows and greens!” Macy celebrated, stacking a mixture of yellow and green sixes. 

Isaiah looked through his cards before sighing and picking up one from the deck. Upon seeing that it was a blue six, he placed it down. Lochlan slapped down a blue two, Parker placed two yellow twos, Xavier smacked down a yellow nine, and Elaina took out a stack of yellow nines. 

“Oh god, are we going to do the yellow incident again?” Fries laughed, before completely changing the colour to green. 

“Fries, you ruined it!” Kaela cried, throwing her hands in front of her mouth in a fake surprise. 

“Sorry! I didn’t have any yellows left!” Fries huffed, turning to Tolu for her to play a card. 

“Ugh- finally! I’ve been waiting for forever !!” Tolu groaned, looking through her cards before pulling out a green eight, followed by a handful of coloured eights. Izaiah placed a yellow eight with a giggle. The look in his eyes said that he definitely wanted to continue the yellow chain. 

Suddenly, a loud screech sounded at the door, scaring the shit out of everyone. Something pounded at the door and I felt my heart lurch out of my body. 

“ Oh my god!! ” I screamed. I wasn’t alone, though, since I could hear everyone else’s voices cry out along with me. But I think we can all agree that I was very calm and collected at the moment, especially if you took in the fact that I felt like shitting myself.

Elaina seemed only caught off guard because of everyone’s screams, she just peeled Xavier off of her arm and made her way towards the door. 

“Elaina are you insane?!” Xavier yelled. 

“Get your giraffe ass back over here!!” Tolu demanded, standing up and seeming to get into a fighting position. 

Already halfway to the door, Elaina just turned around and mewed. Tolu seemed more off-put by that than the mimics. Elaina ignored the girl’s barking (Tolu furry real?!?!?) and kept making her way towards the door. 

I couldn’t exactly see what Elaina was up to, since we were all positioned in a way that we couldn’t see the door entrance correctly (and none of us really wanted to see it anyway), but I could kind of make out that she was standing in front of the glass, and was looking out the window. 

“Elaina!! What are you doing?!?? Get back over here you goober!” Macy shrieked, and I managed to giggle at it a little bit before the mimic (c’mon, we all already know it’s a mimic) pounded at the door again. That made me lose my marbles. Figuratively, I don’t have any marbles on me.

Back to the door, Elaina seemed to work some magic by simply staring at the mimic through the glass, because suddenly the pounding stopped, and some scraping sounded outside, which I assumed was the mimic skedaddling away. How the fuck..?-

“Elaina, you need to stop doing that!” Piper snapped, throwing her a piercing glare that could kill a man (* cough* Xavier *cough-).  “Jesus, Elaina!” 

“Y’know, maybe now’s a good time to stop..” Fries chuckled awkwardly, slowly putting their cards down. 

“Uno!!” Claire cried before playing her last card, a yellow five. 

“Dammit! I mean-” Lael whined, slapping all his two cards down in anger. “You cheated!!”

“I did not!” Claire gasped, offended. 

“Lael, you’re just jealous you didn’t win.” Polly snickered.

“Oh?! I’m gonna-” Lael fussed, about to cross over to Polly to probably attempt (strong emphasis on attempt ) to beat the hell out of her, but luckily Tega sat in between the two. He complained about Lael getting in his way, and when Lael was about to argue back, he just shot him a glare and Lael backed down immediately. How was I supposed to not giggle at that? 

“Okay, okay. Leave your twitter discourse for tomorrow. Bed time.” Fries butted in, already collecting the cards back into the pile. 

“Twitter discourse??” I laughed, handing Fries their cards. 

“Awh, do we have to? I wanna keep playing!” Izaiah grumbled, crossing his arms and pouting. 

“Womp womp.” Elaina shrugged walking back to the group

“Yeah, we have to. Now hand me your cards.” Fries replied, giving everyone a mom look before they grumbled and gave them their cards. “Good.” 

“Are we going to be doing the group thing like last night?” Kaela asked as she offered Fries her cards. 

“Yeah.” 

“Do I still have to sleep down here?” Macy complained, also giving Fries her Uno cards. 

“Hmm.. I don’t think so.” 

“Yes.” 

Tolu and Fries answered at the same time with different tones. They looked at each other for a moment before Tolu gave Fries some sort of ‘let me talk’ look. Fries sighed and collected the rest of the cards as Tolu cleared her throat to probably scream some sense into Macy. 

“Because you can’t just fucking ditch us like that!” She started, glaring daggers at Macy. “I don’t care if it was two nights ago-” 

“One night, actually.” Fries corrected. 

“Whatever! Same thing!” Tolu rolled her eyes. “Well, it doesn’t matter. We can’t trust you anymore. I’m not sorry, Macy, but you have to face the consequences.” 

“First off, why are you acting like my mom?” Macy questioned. “Second off all, it was two nights ago!”

“One night.” Fries corrected again.

“Whatever! It’s the same thing!” Macy groaned, and I tried not to giggle at her and Tolu’s response to Fries’s correction being pretty much the same. “Still, it was one night ago! Can’t you just let it go??” 

“I thought we talked about this already?” Harris asked. “Like- this morning, I think?”

“Oh yeah.” Macy and Tolu blinked at the same time. 

“Yeah! There, that settles it.” Freiah grinned. “Just remember what we talked about.”

“What did you even talk about?” Polly asked, but got mewed by Harris, Elaina, Macy and even Kaela for some reason. “Wow, thanks.” She replied VERY ENTHUSIASTICALLY. 

“Okay that’s enough Twitter discourse.” Fries announced, tying all of the Uno cards together with the elastic. “Beddy bye now.” 

- - - - -

I shifted my position against Tolu’s couch, the same place from last night. Today had flown past so quickly, I found it hard to believe that today was already over, but it was hard to believe any of this was happening, if I was being honest. Wait- hold on..

“Can you guys quiet down? Sorry, but I’m trying to sleep.” I muttered. I didn’t say ‘and have an existential crisis.’ I don’t think they would appreciate that. 

“Told you!” Tega whisper-yelled at Lael, who was about to scream back at him (usual Lael shenanigans.) but thought better of it and just whisper-yelled back at Tega. 

I sighed, leaning over to face the other way where the big window that showcased Tolu’s backyard and Vermillion park stood. We all had tried to cover it up the night we got here, but we weren’t able to, since it was too big to attach anything on, so we left it be. 

The view was grand, to say the least. Even in the night light, the moon cast a light glow that illuminated the red plants that caused this whole mess. Vermillion was crawling with crawl- you couldn’t take a walk without seeing it. The fact that it was so close was making me uneasy, and I wished my friends listened to my concern a bit more when we were talking about it earlier.

I was so busy brooding, I didn’t notice the shadowed figure sitting right next to the window, overlooking the view. I had to squint to see who it was. “Fries.?” 

They turned over in surprise, but regained their composure. “Oh, James.” They chuckled awkwardly. “Scared me a bit there, why aren’t you sleeping?” 

I repositioned myself. “Just can’t yet, I guess.”

“Ha, relatable.” 

“...Didn’t you already go on night duty last night?” I couldn’t help but ask. 

Fries shrugged. “Yeah, but I can do another night.”

I frowned. “Isn’t that.. I don’t know.. Unhealthy.?’ 

“Eh, I’ll be fine.” They replied, waving their hand dismissively. I was about to talk to them about it more, but they beat me to it. “Is there something bothering you?” They asked, and it was almost like they read my mind. 

“Yeah, actually, if you don’t mind..” I mumbled, averting my eyes away. 

“Oh, I don’t. Promise.” Fries replied, and I knew they were smiling despite the darkness in the room. The thought comforted me enough. 

“Well, I’m pretty worried about the crawl being so close.” I said after what seemed like a century. “And- y’know, with the whole thing going around, and the Vita Carnis creatures going berserk, it’s… kind of scaring me..” 

Fries nodded, and then paused. “Yeah, I don’t blame you, dude.” They sighed. “This whole thing scares me too, though. You’re not the only one.” 

“Really?” I was actually pretty surprised by that. “Well- I don’t mean that to offend you, it’s just that- you always seem so easy to take control of everything.. Like, you’ve got everything planned out and ready.” 

Fries chuckled in response. “Awh, don’t worry about it.” They said, “And I usually do have a plan for most things, actually. I can live a lot easier knowing there’s ways out of a situation with everyone making it out alive and well.” 

They paused. “But this isn’t about me, is it? Yeah, I’m worried about the crawl in Vermillion, too. What I’m hoping to do is stay here for as long as we can. Get ourselves sorted out and prepared before we leave- if we need to, that is.” 

I nodded along. Seemed reasonable enough to me. I felt pretty secure with Fries having a plan for basically everything, but it made me worry a bit. It seemed pretty pressuring.. But they didn’t seem too bothered by it. 

“Do you think we’ll leave?” I blurted out. I had no idea where it came from, and I went to apologize, but was cut off. 

“I hope we don’t have to, but I think that we will have to at some point, y’know?” Fries admitted. “And it’s getting late. You should go back to sleep, you goober.”

- - - - -

I woke up to pans banging against each other. It wasn’t a pleasant thing to hear at.. Eight in the morning? 

“Rise and shine idiots.” Tolu beamed, looking proud of herself for the pain she’s created. “Get your asses out of bed!”

“Goddammit Tolu?! Can’t I sleep in??” Macy complained as I rubbed my eyes and forced myself out of the couch. 

“Ha! NO .” Tolu snapped, then banged the pans together again. 

“What the fuck?!” Macy shrieked, but Tolu didn’t listen to her. Not like she ever did, anyway. 

Tolu then just walked away, which was pretty odd after what she just did. I looked around my group, and already half of them were just aching to go back to sleep, and I would have been lying if I said I didn’t want to join Lochlan in his pillow fort dozing off again. But I decided to be good and get out of my sleeping position. 

I stood up and stretched. Tolu had lended us some of her family’s clothes if we wanted to change out of ours. Our current clothes were now in the wash, getting clean for the next time we wanted them. I pushed the blanket I used into the corner of the couch, since Tolu said that we could place the stuff wherever as long as it didn’t get dirty and/or lost. 

I stretched one more time before groggily heading out towards the kitchen. I stopped at the entrance and leaned against the wall. Piper and Harris were having a pretty tame conversation (compared to their usual ones, at least. They weren’t yelling at each other that much anymore) about what to make for breakfast, from what I picked up. 

Then, Piper caught sight of me, then the two started berating me for ‘being in a restricted area’ and how the kitchen was for ‘cooks only’ or something. I awkwardly apologized before moving along. I went upstairs where the other group slept and looked around. Much more of them were awake. Well- Daphne was still sleeping despite Polly’s best attempts to wake her up. I turned around and saw Xavier packing up their sleeping bag. 

“Oh, hey Xavier!” I greeted, trying to sound as cheerful as a person who’s just been forced awake by some pans and yelled at for being 000000.1 millimetres in the kitchen could be. 

“Hey James.” They replied, rolling up their sleeping bag. 

“Did Tolu wake you guys up with the pans, too?” I asked, noticing how annoyed they seemed. 

“Yep.” Xavier groaned. “She had to force her way into the kitchen. Harris and Piper treat that space as their territory now.” They scoffed. I then noticed that their eyepatch was off, revealing a large scar that covered the left side of their face. I had no idea the scar was that big- and it must have been very painful when Xavier got attacked like that.. 

I shook off the disturbing thought and turned back to Xavier. “Wow, your uhm- eyepatch is gone..” I mentioned and Xavier nodded. 

“Yeah. Now I have this badass scar now.” They said confidently which made me giggle a bit, to be honest. 

“Yeah, it does look really badass.” I agreed. 

I stood by as Xavier finished packing up their sleeping bag. When they finally finished, they stood up and stretched. I bet they woke up not that long ago as well. 

“Should we check on everyone else?” I asked. 

Xavier shrugged. “Eh, sure.” 

- - - - -

We didn’t really ‘check up on everyone,’ if I were completely honest. We just roamed around the house and half-heartedly bullied everyone. 

After we harassed Piper and Harris in the kitchen, then got yelled at for being in their ‘sacred space,’ we went over to the living room. 

“We should do that training thing Xavier mentioned last night.” Macy requested. “Y’know, so we can be prepared when the ice spice zombies come.” 

“Oh my god we so should!!!” Daphne exclaimed, now fully awake since Polly, Claire and even Kaela had to force her up. She was grumpy at first but then bustled with energy as she usually did. The training thing probably didn’t make it any better. 

“Oh, so it’s like the hunger games.” Elaina commented, and scared the shit out of everyone for a good moment. 

“What the- where did you come from!?” Lael shrieked, almost falling over the couch. 

“Your mom.” Elaina instantly replied with.

“Fuck you!!” Lael retorted.

“I’m gonna go somewhere else before I get a headache.” Fries announced, rubbing their eyes. I forgot they were awake for two days straight! “Don’t kill each other while I’m gone, m’kay? Tolu’s watching over you guys.” 

“Ha ha!” Tolu celebrated as Fries went off screen. “So, this training thing.. How are we going to do it?” She asked. 

“Okay, first, we need to know the mimics strategies, which I do.” Xavier said confidently, and continued before Tolu could swear at them. “It’ll help us train so we know what we’re facing.” 

“Says the guy that got his ass whooped by a mimic not long ago.” Macy commented, and when Xavier glared at her, she replied with something very smart (‘grah Ice Spice’) . 

“Yeah, that seems like a pretty good idea.” Lochlan nodded. “We should do that.” 

“How, exactly?” Claire questioned. “I mean, it seems like a good idea, don’t get me wrong, but how are we going to train? Are we just going to swing our weapons at each other or something?” 

“Yep!” Daphne grinned, now holding the run-down lightsaber she used to attack Harris’ mutated dog a day or so ago. “C’mon Kaela- let’s show them how it’s done!!” 

- - - - -

I swinged my legs against the couch as I watched Kaela and Daphne attempt to battle each other with fake weapons. Right beside me sat the sledgehammer Kaela used as a weapon when we ran from the ice spice zombie thing a night or something ago (oh no Macy’s rubbing off on me..). She and Daphne thought they could both battle with real weapons, but Tolu declined the offer, which bummed everyone out. 

“No! Don’t swing it at the arm! You’re supposed to block attacks!” Xavier scolded Kaela who swiped at Daphne’s arm when she tried to attack her. 

“Well, gee, sorry!!” Kaela said sarcastically, blocking Daphne’s next attack. “I don’t really see how this is helping!” 

“Strike her down, Kaela!!” Lael encouraged, earning a giggle from most of the kids watching (I totally wasn’t one of them- haha ..)

“What?!” Daphne shrieked, momentarily pausing her training to glare at Lael, who stuck his tongue out at her. “Oh you little-” 

“Hey! You little shits!” Piper suddenly hollered, walking out of the kitchen. “Lunch is ready.” 

Chapter Text

Fries took a bite out of mac and cheese that was being served. They didn’t want to admit it, but two all-nighters kind of made them a bit tired…y’know, as they should. 

Nevertheless, they did a quick headcount in their head, even though no one had stepped out of the house after the Macy incident. Fries wasn’t mad at her anymore, just mildly annoyed that she did such a thing but they didn’t want to pry on it for too long. Macy was right, they should probably let it go. 

Fries glanced toward Piper, who was picking at her food, distanced away from everyone. They assumed her mind was on Brynley, which it usually was after the whole fiasco with the mimic mimicking her voice. They got ahold of their slipping senses and stumbled majestically over towards her. 

“Hey.” They greeted, sitting down next to her on the floor. “You alright?” 

“No, not really.” The blonde replied honestly, eyes still glued on her food, despite making no move to eat it. 

“Hm..” Fries hummed, not sure what to say. Then a memory popped up. “Hey, we agreed to head over to your house to try to call her, right?” 

Piper frowned. “Oh, you were serious about that?” 

The mom friend nodded. “Yeah! We could head over there after lunch, if you’d like.” They suggested. 

Piper finally glanced over to them and the smallest smile spread on her lips. “Yeah.. I guess we could do that…after lunch of course.” 

Fries smiled back reassuringly at their friend, despite how they felt like collapsing at the moment. “It’s a plan then.” To be completely honest, they were pretty nervous about leaving the house, but they’d do (almost) anything for a friend! “Now eat the food you made, it’s really good.” They jokingly urged, but they really wanted Piper to eat. 

The gremlin chuckled a little bit. “Okay fine.” She rolled her eyes before taking a bite out of the mac and cheese. 

Once satisfied that their friend in a depressive era was feeling okay, Fries continued eating as well. They let the warmness of the freshly made mac and cheese sink into their taste buds and enjoyed the meal. 

They glanced over to the others, who were scattered around the house, also in mini groups similar to what Fries and Piper were right now. Fries noticed Xavier talking to the kids in some kind of annoyed expression, but since Fries left to rest when Xavier got them to do the training thing, they weren’t sure what was up. James glanced over to where Fries and Piper sat and shot a small smile before turning back to listen to Xavier’s squabbling. Fries appreciated the gesture.

They finished their food without noticing, and waited for Piper to finish up herself. They didn’t really talk much when eating, even during lunch at school. They usually finish their food before talking so they can hear and understand each other more clearly. But it got awkward sometimes, if Fries was being honest. 

Once Piper finally finished her extravagant cuisine (expired macaroni), she let out a sigh. “So.. are we really doing this?” She asked. 

“Yeah, we’ll just wait for everyone to finish up as well.” Fries said. “Don’t want them worrying about where we are, you know?” They finished off with a smile, and Piper thankfully gave a soft smile back.

- - - - -

“What?!” Practically everyone screamed when Fries tried to announce that Piper and themself were going to have a date at Piper’s house (/j). 

“Freiah, what if you die out there???” Macy questioned. “Just like I almost did??” 

“Fries, are you insane?!” Tolu groaned.

“Hear me out, hear me out,” Fries chuckled nervously. “We need to go check up on Piper’s house to make sure Brynley’s alright and stuff. We can also gather materials from her house that we may not have in Tolu’s.” They reasoned. Fries always had backup reasons and excuses whenever someone disagreed with them, and they just came in handy now. 

“We won’t take long, and plus, it’s daytime. Mimics don’t really come out during the day! Xavier, fact check me on this.” 

“Freiah’s right.” Xavier muttered, not seeming very happy about them leaving, either. “Mimics stalk their prey, learn their routine and when they’re most vulnerable, and usually attack when you’re sleeping, which is usually at night.” They said.

“Even if you’re not sleeping, they still recognize that you’re vulnerable mostly at night, anyway.” Kaela added, and Xavier side-eyed her for not letting them explain instead.

“Since when did you listen to the instructional videos?” They interrogated, sounding really suspicious of her for some reason (Kaela imposter real 🤯).

“Since I decided that these things were a threat and could probably kill us??” Kaela answered, confused as hell to why Xavier’s interrogating her like this. 

“ Okay ..” Xavier muttered

“What??” Kaela replied

“Okay, that doesn’t matter.” Tolu butted in, annoyed. “The main thing is that you two think you can just leave us like it’s nothing!” She huffed. “Macy did that once, and look where she ended up!” 

“Grah.” Macy added

Fries sighed. God, they were trying so hard not to be irritated right now, but the lack of sleep was catching onto them. “C’mon, it’ll be like a little scouting mission, guys. You can all go on ones later, just.. Let me and Piper do this one. Please?” They held their breath as they waited for everyone’s reaction. 

“I think they should be able to go..” James shrugged. “I mean, they can surely handle themselves just fine- and plus, they said they need to go, so why not let them?” 

Fries felt like face-planting into the floor out of gratitude. Yippee! A reason to not lose their shit at everybody! 

Lochlan shrugged. “I don’t really care. As long as you bring back some stuff to make more good food with, I’m alright.” 

“Yeah, we will, don’t worry.” Piper assured. “We won’t come back empty-handed.” 

“Wait, Fries, didn’t you say we were doing stuff Percy Jackson style?” Kaela asked. “Like for night duty, it’s three people, shouldn’t that be the same thing for quests- uh, I mean, scouts?” 

Fries glanced back at Piper, who seemed to have been uncomfortable with another person, but Fries couldn’t just leave the group waiting. 

“Uh, yeah.. I think three people is a good amount.” They muttered, shooting an apologetic look towards their friend in an emo era ( TONIGHT WILL BE THE NIGHT- ). “We need to think this over, though.” They cleared their throat. 

“We need there to be a good balance in the trio. Y’know, so the whole thing’s stable? We can’t have someone that’ll just cause the whole group to fight-” 

“So no Izaiah..” Tega snickered. 

“-or someone that’ll cause everyone to slow down.” Fries continued nonetheless. “First off, we need to cut off people. I’m not allowing any of the kids on any scouts-” 

And with that, they were interrupted again, this time by eleven little demons all complaining about wanting to go outside of the house for once (wow surprise).

“ Yet! Geez, let me finish!” Fries snapped, but quickly regained their composure. “When we reach a time when we’re all familiar with everything that’s going on, and prepared, I’ll let you kids go. Not now, though, okay?”

“Then, Tolu, I want you to stay here- AND LET ME FINISH THIS TIME! ” They added quickly, waving their hands in exasperation. “I want you to stay because you’re the only one I trust watching the kids. When I’m able to stay here and watch the kids, that’s when I’ll allow you to go, okay?” Tolu grumbled in response, but didn’t argue much, which Fries was thankful about. 

“What about me, and the other ‘older kids’?” Xavier asked with quotations. “Why don’t we get to watch over them?” 

“Because I don’t trust you with them.” Fries deadpanned. 

Xavier opened their mouth to argue, before pausing and thinking about it. “Nevermind, you’re right. I am not trustworthy with children.” They agreed with a shrug. 

“So.. who’s going with you, then?” Harris then asked, and Fries almost jumped out of their skin when they heard his voice. Not in a lovey-dovey romantic way- their mind was so cloudy they forgot he was there 

“Well-” 

“Elaina can go with us.” Piper replied, looking at the pink woman.

“Huh?” Said the pink woman who had zoned out 5 minutes ago

“Think about it! She could perfectly balance us out!” The psychopathic Swiftie said. “Look, she’s strong and stuff, while we have the skill, brains, and emotional maturity!” 

“You have emotional maturity?” Harris asked, face scrunching up in confusion.

“Oh, I was referring to Freiah.” Piper explained whilst pointing at Fries beside her; everyone ‘ oooooh’ ed in ‘okay that makes more sense’. 

“I guess I’ll take that as a compliment.?” Fries chuckled awkwardly, but to be completely honest, the appreciation woke them up a little more now. 

“You better.” Piper threatened. 

“Heh.. yep.” Fries replied, before turning mom mode back on. “So, while I’m gone, I don’t want to hear anything too bad from Tolu, okay Lael ?” 

“What?!” Lael gasped, offended. Everybody tried not to giggle too loudly.  “What did I do??” 

“Everything.” Piper muttered. 

“You just cause a lot of trouble, you know that.” Fries sighed. “But that doesn’t just go to Lael, that goes to everyone, okay?. This is Tolu’s home, and you will not do any damage to it, you hear me?” They stared at all of their kids before being satisfied, then turned back to Piper to see what she’ll say. 

“So, I guess me, Freiah and Elaina are going, then.” Piper confirmed.

Everybody just nodded along. 

“Huh???” Elaina questioned, looking around confused as ever. 

“Oh- shut up!!” Tolu scoffed.

- - - - - 

“So, you kids be good while I’m gone, okay?” Fries asked their kids as they were about to head out, Piper and Elaina already prepared to leave. 

“Yeah, yeah, we know.” Tega rolled his eyes. 

“We’ll be very good, parent.” Dorito replied, pronouncing each word like some sort of sacred oath, and starting to bow. 

“Yeah, yeah- you don’t.. You don’t need to do that..” Fries chuckled awkwardly, putting their hands on their daughter (who was a couple inches taller than them) and making them stand straight (despite not being straight HAHAHA -). 

“We will be on our best behaviour..” Lael grumbled, sounding like he was forced to say it (which he probably was, to be honest). 

“Yeah, we won’t do anything too dangerous!!” Lochlan added, grinning widely, but Fries found it endearing nonetheless. 

“Okay.. Y’all better not.” Fries sighed, hand on the door. “Well, we won’t be gone for long, so I’ll see you soon, m’kay?” 

A mixture of agreements and grumbles sounded from the group of children, but Fries was satisfied with their answers anyway. 

“Alright then, seeya!” They said before finally shutting the door behind them. They assumed that Piper and Elaina were outside already, and they were. Elaina was teasing Piper about something (probably about her being short), having fun and being idiots as usual. It brought a smile to Fries’ face. 

They gathered up all their focus, and took a deep breath in, ignoring their kids from the upper window. Geez, they couldn’t even have some time to themselves anymore. After getting ahold of their senses (and gaslighting themselves into believing they weren’t going to pass out of exhaustion any second), they marched over toward the other part of their group. 

“Let’s go, then” They said, as Piper tried to kick Elaina. 

“Huh? Oh yeah!” Piper nodded, before practically running down Tolu’s driveway. 

“Wha- Piper!!” Fries complained, jogging after her, urging Elaina to follow along. Luckily, Piper decided not to leave them in the dust, because she slowed down a little bit when the Asian with a strong maternal instinct called out to her. Fries reminded themselves not to be as loud next time, if they didn’t want the three of them to become a multicultural kebab. 

They all started walking at a medium pace, now. Not too fast, not too slow- their usual pace when walking home, but this time it was just Fries and Piper. And Elaina, of course, but she just sort of stuck around in the back, being ominous. 

Whilst talking to Piper about Percy Jackson ships, slowly leaving Tolu’s turf, Fries spotted a little bit of dried blood splattered near the garage where they, Elaina and Xavier got jumped by Harris’ dog mutation thing. That night was so terrifying, Fries just wanted to hold something close and go to sleep, but the urge to make sure everyone was safe was stronger, so that’s what they did. 

Their conversation with Piper shifted from Percy Jackson ships, to which Greek god would give the best head, then how practical a broken walmart bag would be as a weapon. Don’t ask how the conversation shifted like that, it just did.

Before Fries knew it, them, Piper and Elaina were standing outside Piper's house. It didn’t look severely damaged, which was good. That meant there was a lesser chance something might jumpscare them all. 

“So..” Fries whistled. “Are we going to get in or..” 

“Ight, Imma head in. See ya short people.” Elaina butted in, walking towards the side door already.

“Elaina, are you serious right now?” Piper questioned, walking up to her, and standing beside her in front of the side door. “This is my house, I should get in first.” 

“Guys- maybe we should just go in together ?” Fries suggested, as if it were the most obvious thing. Oh geez the irritability is catching up. “Y’know, so if we get jumpscared then we can all fight back as a group.” 

“Womp womp.” Elaina decided to force the door open anyway, which was a jumpscare on its own. 

“Jesus Elaina!” Piper shrieked, clutching Fries’ arm from the shock. She stared at the door, now hanging off its hinges, then glared at Elaina. “I live here, you know.” She scowled, before walking in.

“Used to.” Elaina corrected, but Piper didn’t seem to hear her. Or cared, or just ignored her all in all. 

Didn’t matter, though, because the three district twelve citizens got jumpscared once again, an animal this time. It came running from the left side where the kitchen is, its paws pounding the hard floors. Fries yelped when it jumped onto Piper and-

“Penny!! I’m so glad you’re okay!” Piper squealed, holding her companion close, giving it a hug that could probably strangle it, but Piper didn’t seem to care. “Oh, I was so worried about you! Did you eat anything while everyone was gone?” She cooed, rubbing behind her dog's ears. 

Elaina and Fries stood awkwardly behind the blonde as she reunited with her pet. In Elaina’s point of view, it was pretty sweet, but she felt out of place; in Fries’ point of view, they could only feel guilty for what happened with Harris’ dog… 

“Uhm, Piper.?” Elaina managed to cough out while Piper was murmuring sweet things to her dog. 

Piper snapped her head dramatically to face the pink one. “Can’t you see I’m reuniting with my dog?” She spat, glaring daggers in Fries’ and Elaina’s direction. 

“We just got here, you have time to reunite with her. We just need to get some stuff done first..” Fries explained, trying to stay awake after each blink of an eye. “C’mon, please?” 

Piper seemed to side eye the two of her (human-ish) companions, then back to her more loved companion (her dog), before sighing. “Okay, fine.” She muttered. “But I wanna feed her first.” 

- - - - -

They fed the dog. Well, Piper and Elaina fed her, Fries went on watch. 

To be completely honest, Fries knew… not much about pets. They felt awkward just standing there, so they just found an excuse to just not. Staring out through the broken door as Piper and Elaina were probably making out right now (/j) was a really good mixture of relaxing and stressing. 

One, it was nice to be alone with their thoughts for once, and the weather outside was wonderful for a game of badminton. But two, a mimic could jump out of nowhere and kill them all. So yeah, really calming indeed. 

Once Fries had enough of their mind drifting to that fic they read a couple of days ago with Mercury going on a killing rampage and tuna having a Romeo and Julliet storyline, they decided to head back inside, but they were cautious taking their eyes off the scenery outside, so they wanted to be quick. 

“Hey, Elaina?” They asked, eyes shifting from Katpiss to the red-stained world outside. “Can you like- take watch now? Me and Piper can handle it from here.” 

The pink woman considered it for a moment before shrugging and standing to full height now (about a foot taller than them). “Sure.” She blinked, before casually walking toward the door to scout. 

Fries glanced over to their blonde, who was gently petting Penny, now. “You ready?” They asked, and Piper peaked up. 

“Yeah, sure.” She shrugged, now seemingly gotten herself under control. “Let’s… call Brynley first?” 

The fanfiction author nodded. “Yeah, if you want to.” 

“Oh, trust me. I want to.” Piper insisted, petting her dog one last time before heading over to a nearby phone (don’t ask how it got there idfk).

“You know Brynley’s number?” Fries asked. 

“Mhm.” Piper mumbled, dialing the numbers in. She held the phone to her ear as she waited for someone to pick up. She stood there, her hand quivering as she waited for her friend to pick up. 

A couple of seconds later, Piper started to lose hope. “I- I don’t know if this is gonna work out..” She muttered in a tone so worried, Fries just wanted everything to go well for her- for everyone. 

“Don’t give up yet! Maybe wait another second?-” 

“Hello?” Brynley’s voice rang through the phone, and Fries felt a lot happier seeing Piper’s face light up like that. 

“Brynley!!” Piper squealed, before bombarding the poor girl with questions and concern. 

Fries suddenly felt awkward standing around here watching their friend go through something this emotional. Luckily, Piper seemed to drift away naturally, making her way towards a more secluded area of her house as she talked to Brynley. 

A moment of realization sprang through Fries when they remembered what else they needed to do here. They went over towards the back wall of the dining area where a bookshelf sat. From what they remember from visiting Piper’s house for a long time, there were cookbooks somewhere in here, which would help planning out meals in the long run. After rummaging through the books and other stuff, Fries selected two cookbooks that would last a century or two. 

They looked around the house some more, checking the fridge, cupboard, and even the drawers under the tv (hey, they might need extra switches, alright?) for anything useful. Fortunately they found quite a lot, and laid all the components out, contemplating which ones would be more useful. 

Their mind ran rampant with the options- which ones would be healthier? Which ones would last longer? Which ones would their kids actually eat without complaining? Would they even taste good by the time they’re necessary? What if they lost the snacks? What if they expired? What if-

Luckily, Piper marching down the stairs snapped Fries out of their mind spiral. Good thing Piper was there to distract them. Things would have probably not ended well if she wasn't there to fetch them out of their overthinking. 

“Well,” The blonde sighed. “Brynley is very much alive, and well. She’s on some sort of refugee bus out of Dauphin with the rest of her family and friends.” She explained. 

“Refugee bus?” Fries frowned. 

None of them had heard of any bus coming to save them when the Vita Carnis creatures attacked… “Since when-” 

“Ooooh! Are these the foods you gathered?” Piper asked, walking over towards the piles of edible goods Fries had lain across the dinner table, patting her dog on the way. The table was organized chaos, to put it lightly. 

Fries opened their mouth to brush it off and ask more about the buses, but Piper beat them to it again. “I think we should take the fruits and the goldfish, first off.” She commented, pointing to the two components. “How much can we carry? 

The anti-capitalist blinked and glanced back at the backpacks Tolu had sent them out with. They were old cringey ones from when Tolu and her siblings were young, but seemed to be able to carry a good amount despite being in terrible condition. 

“I think there’s enough space.” Fries muttered, walking over to grab one of three backpacks (each one of them got a backpack). “Here, try it out.” 

Piper shoved the fifteen goldfish packets into the bag, and they seemed to fit well. She then threw the fruits inside, a couple of apples, bananas and one orange (don’t ask why there’s only one). 

“Yeah, seems pretty okay.” Piper hummed, taking the backpack from Fries, their hands brushing for a second. “You grab the other bags, we can fill them all up with all the other stuff.” 

- - - - -

They’ve been packing for what felt like hours, and Piper decided that Fries should take a break. Fries, obviously replied with a ‘no thanks’ but then Piper used her white girlness powers to force it, so now Fries was on their way towards Elaina so they could be emo together.

“Asian jumpscare.” They greeted.

“Ah!” Elaina jumped, before regaining control of herself. “Dammit. Go back to your country, you silly rice muncher.” She added, rolling her eyes. 

Fries giggled, and went to lean against the other side of the door frame. They yawned, and then realized how tired they were. 

“I should not have pulled two all-nighters.” They grumbled, rubbing their eyes awake. “That shits gonna kill me, not the mimics.” 

Elaina laughed, brushing a strand of hair out of her face. Fries glanced over just in time to notice something on her hand… Wait-

“What’s that?” The sleep-deprived Filipino asked, pointing at the mark just peeking out of Elaina’s hoodie sleeve. 

“Huh.” Elaina huh’ed, but Fries took Elaina’s hand (GAY- *gets shot*) to inspect it. They folded the sleeve up so they could see better and was astonished at the huge gashes that traced the entirety of Elaina’s forearm. 

“Oh, yeah.” Elaina shrugged, as if it were nothing as Fries stared at the scars in horror. “I forgot those were there. My bad bro.” 

“...Elaina, when- wha-..” Fries stammered, trying to piece everything in their mind back together. The scars still looked pretty fresh, but no blood seeped through. They were open enough that you could see what was underneath and oh Fries wanted to puke- 

“We need to bandage these up.” They finally said, panic arising in their voice. “God- why the fuck did I not notice these sooner?!” They muttered to themselves, pulling Elaina towards the washroom. 

“Hey! Who’s going to stay on watch?!” Piper yelled as Fries tried to remember where Piper’s restroom was. 

“Uh- can you for a while? I need to fix up Elaina’s arm!” Fries cried back, but didn’t wait for a response as they threw themselves and Elaina into the nearest bathroom (sus). 

They flew open the cupboards and scanned the contents, trying to find something to help. They thought back to their previous medical experience- Xavier and before. 

They forced Elaina’s arm close to the sink as they brought some damp tissue and pressed on the scarred areas lightly. They weren’t sure if Elaina not exactly reacting was a good thing or not. Nonetheless, they rummaged through the drawers and shelves for bandages, and when they finally did, they wrapped it around the wounds. 

After securing it, they sighed. “Elaina.” They started.

Awkward silence. 

“Wha-” Elaina started before getting immediately interrupted

“Next time, tell me when you’re hurt.” Fries muttered, their tone expressing the concern and genuineness they felt at the moment. “Please.” 

Elaina seemed to hesitate, but decided on a nod to reassure Fries. 

“Can you guys hurry the fuck up?! We have more shit to pack!” Piper urged, complaining with every word.

“Okay. fine!” Fries rolled their eyes. “We’re coming!” 

“That’s what she said!” Elaina added

- - - - -

Packing didn’t take that long, which was good because Fries really wanted to check up on their kids. They felt like being away for this long would provoke them to start a fire in Tolu’s basement, which they really did not want. 

Good thing them and Piper speedran packing up all the supplies and food and shit. Together, they managed to fit two bigass cookbooks into a bag, along with food that’ll last through the stone age. All under thirty minutes, which was really good in Fries’ eyes. 

Piper swiped an old phone from her mom’s closet, along with her tablet and shoved them in with the rest of the food in her backpack. She said she might need them just in case. 

The three left Piper’s home, before getting reminded of Piper’s dog. 

The Swiftie cooed as she petted Penny for the fiftieth time. “We can’t just leave her here!” Piper cried. “I don’t want her to get hurt or..” 

Fries didn’t want Piper to finish. “We can bring her with us.” They said, “We can take in all of our pets that survive. Just because it’s an apocalypse, doesn’t mean animal cruelty is justified.” 

“What about Harris’ dog?” Elaina asked. 

“Yeah… I still feel really bad about that.” Fries muttered, and in all honesty, they really did! Thinking about what happened to the poor thing made their heart shatter. 

“Yeah- wait, you said we can bring her?!” Piper squealed, then immediately went to hug the last bit of life Fries had in them. “THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THA-” 

“Oh- it’s fine Piper!” Fries laughed as Piper pulled away and just giggled on the spot. “Really, it’s the least I could do!” 

“Just- thank you!!” Piper smiled.

“Okay, cut the gay shit, let’s go now.” Elaina rolled her eyes. 

“Shut up you homophobe! Freiah, come here.” Piper teased, trying to rizz up Fries who was already turning to walk away… Okay. 

“Come back here you Asian!” Elaian shouted, both of the pink women speeding towards the rice consumer. 

“I wasn’t even that far!” Fries said, waving their hands in defense. 

“Well… womp womp! ” Elaina replied, waving her hands in front of Fries as well, as if trying to grab their face and rip out their facial features. 

“Wait- Elaina. Are those bandages? What happened?” Piper asked, noticing the wraps around Elaina’s forearm. 

“Oh, uhm, remember when…” 

Was the last thing Fries heard before zoning out. The group was already walking back to Tolu’s house, Piper and Elaina were in the front. Elaina was casually explaining how she sigma’ed the mutated dog to not completely kill her or something. Fries stayed behind, though, but they didn’t really mind. They took this free time to get ahold of themselves- something they’ve miraculously been doing for the past 48 hours. 

Finally, the trio made it back to Tolu’s mansion. Elaina took a peek inside the window at the side of the entrance and waved. Fortunately, Lochlan, Isaiah, Izaiah and James were hanging out in that area, and upon noticing them, Lochlan ran out to open the door for them. 

Fries’ mind swirled. 

The door opened, and the three got in. The place was as usual, but Fries still felt like something was wrong. Oh whatever- they always thought something was wrong. 

Elaina and Piper took off their shoes, and Fries followed, untying their right shoelace absentmindedly, but somehow still getting the job done. The three walked up the stairs where they were all immediately bombarded with questions and comments and stuff. Things were being spoken to them at a pace they couldn’t keep up with anymore. Fries heard someone ask if they were okay, but the words didn’t register. 

Then their head hit the wall floor.  

!!BONUS!! (‘twas a suggestion from my editor:33)

A couple minutes or so after Freiah, Piper and Elaina ditched them, Tolu, Harris and Xavier sat perched in front Tolu’s bedroom window that overlooked the front of Tolu’s house. Why were they there instead of watching the kids? They got too annoying, if Tolu was being honest. They just wanted some ‘adult time’. 

“Ugh, when are they coming back?” Xavier complained. “This is boring.” 

“Womp womp.” Harris replied. Then, something caught his eye below. He squinted to get a better look. 

“What?” Tolu asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“Is that…” Harris looked even more. “Sabre???” 

“What?!” Tolu and Xavier gasped at the same time, both snapping their heads in the direction Harris was facing. 

“Oh my god it is!” Xavier blinked, surprised but not at the same time. 

From what they could all see from up here, their classmate was just walking down the sidewalk, hands in his pockets as if it were the most normal day ever. He didn’t even seem badly bruised- at least not from up here. 

“How the fuck did he survive??” Tolu gaped. 

“Sabre’s just magical like that. Don’t question his sigma ways.” Harris snickered.

“Harris?”  Xavier asked.

“Ya?”  

“Shut the fuck up.” 

Unfortunately for Xavier, Harris mewed at them. Twice. 

Chapter Text

Damn, watching Fries collapse onto the floor was a direction Macy was not expecting today to go.  

First of all, she's still getting yelled at for a minor inconvenience that happened like- three nights ago, then she had only yellows and greens in Uno, then she got woken up by Tolu and frying pans for some reason, and now this ?! The ice spice zombies would never do this to her, that’s for sure. 

“OH MY GOD ARE THEY DEAD?!?!?!!” Lochlan screamed, and Macy yelled at him to shut up. 

“PARENT!!!” Daphne screamed, and now a crowd of underage children surrounded the poor Tumblr dweller. Macy was sure Freiah wasn’t actually dead, but she was still worried nonetheless. 

“Guys calm down, maybe they’re just a lil tired.” Macy told the anxious children. “Now scatter. I don’t think crowding around them would do any good.” 

Luckily, more mature people were on the way! Well, that’s what Macy thought, until she saw Xavier and Harris show up. Yeah, no. Freiah was doomed.

“Harris!” Tega hollered for his attention. “Maybe a true love’s kiss would work?” 

“ What ?!” Daphne deadpanned. “Oh, no you don’t !!” 

“Guys, maybe just let them rest? I mean, they have been up for two whole nights. Maybe they just passed out from exhaustion?” Kaela recommended. Good thing she did, though. Everyone else in this room (well, besides Polly, Claire, James and maybe Daphne) was too dense to even think of a logical approach to this situation. 

“Yeah, sure, let’s go with that.” Tega shrugged. “Harris, you carry them.” 

“What? Why me?” Harris blinked. 

“You’re married, aren’t you?” 

“ WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED HERE?!!” Tolu’s booming voice rang out through the house as she stomped over to the formed group. “Why is everyone crowded around- WHAT HAPPENED TO FRIES!?! ” She gaped. 

“They passed out I think.” James answered, and the concern in his voice made Macy’s heart explode. 

“So are we just going to leave them here or actually put them on.. Oh, I don’t know.. A bed ?!” Tega rolled his eyes, not seeming really concerned about this whole thing. 

“Okay.” Elaina shrugged, scooping the totally not deceased into her arms bridal style. “So.. where am I putting this rice muncher?” 

“Uh- my parents room, maybe.” Tolu stammered, guiding Elaina along the way to said room. 

Everyone else just stood in the living room. 

“So…” Piper whistled awkwardly, shifting on her heels.. 

“Harris, are you not worried about your wi- husband?” Tega snapped at the dude. “That’s not very good wife of you.” He huffed, crossing his arms and turning away. 

“Yeah, Harris!” Kaela added. She would take any situation to insult the recovered drug inhaler. 

He mewed at her. 

“Jesus Christ Harris.” Xavier groaned. 

“Yo, guys,” Macy started, getting everyone's attention. “Freiah literally almost fucking died and you’re out here harrassing poor blue hair and pronouns?? I could have been crocheting right now!” 

“Macy, you crochet?” Polly asked. 

“Grah.” Macy replied proudly. 

“What are we supposed to do now?” Isaiah asked, awkwardly shifting from foot to foot, rubbing his arm. 

“Fight the ice spice zombies, of course.” Macy encouraged. Maybe she could start an uprising with Freiah temporarily gone… Nah, too much work. 

“As much as I hate to say it.. Macy’s right.” Xavier sighed.

“Yeah, that’s right guys !! Wait, you “hate to say it”???” 

“We should get back to practicing.” Xavier ignored her, as they usually did most of the fucking time. “Remind me, why did we stop again?” 

“Because you kind of left to go star-gazing with Tolu and Harris or something.” Claire shrugged. “I was in the middle of beating Parker’s ass when you just walked out.” 

“Yeah, good job on that Claire.” Kaela commented, and the two did a lil high five. I love yuri!!!

“Oh.” Xavier blinked. “Well, I don’t think I did, so we’re going to ignore that.” They waved everyone off dismissively and made their way towards the living room again, looking through the practice weapons. 

“Gee, Xavier. Are you just going to ignore everything against you??” Macy rolled her eyes. 

“Shaddap you false ginger.” They retorted. “Now, who are we sacrificing first?” 

- - - - -

Macy plopped back down onto the couch with a groan after being defeated by Kaela in the training thing. It wasn’t her fault she was so damn bad at dodging attacks! 

They had all moved the couches when Piper, Freiah and Elaina left so they had more room to “train”, and everyone could watch more clearly. 

The Ice Spice enthusiast rubbed her eyes as she blankly stared ahead of her. She could kind of see two figures- whom she assumed was Tega and Lochlan. An interesting dynamic, to say the least. 

“Hey.” A voice sounded from somewhere nearby Macy. It made her jump. 

“Aah! What the-” She blinked. “James??” 

“Sorry, did I scare you?” He apologized. 

James was one of Macy’s favourites out of Freiah’s bunch of kids. Don’t tell any of the other kids this, but Macy thought James was the only kid Freiah actually did a good job raising. When he wasn’t being… y’know. 

“Yeah, you really fucking did!” Macy laughed. “But it’s cool, though. What’s up little man?” 

“I- uh, okay.” James blinked at the name, which earned an evil giggle from Macy. “I just wanted to know if you were okay.” Well, at least Macy could easily pinpoint the similarities between James and his parent. They were too damn caring. 

“Y’know James, you really are Freiah’s kid” Macy commented. What? She thinks of something, no doubt she’ll probably say it aloud. “That’s a good thing, by the way.” 

“Oh, really?” James asked, along with a light chuckle. “Thanks.” He paused. “Speaking of Fries.. You saw what happened, right?” 

“Yeah,” Macy replied. “Their head really hit the floor.” they agreed. “You mentioned they might have passed out?” 

James nodded. “I spoke to them last night, actually.” He added. “They really worried me, though. Staying up for two whole nights.” 

“Well, that’s Freiah for ya.” Macy sighed, leaning back and crossing her legs. “Sweet but really fucking stupid.” (thanks Macy) 

James opened his mouth to (what Macy assumed) argue, but was cut off by Lael screaming out like some horror movie protagonist. 

“Boy, shut the fuck up!” Macy hollered back. 

“Tega stepped on my foot!” Lael cried back, pointing at the culprit accusingly. “I wasn’t even battling you, dammit!” 

Tega just stood there. “Oh, please.” He rolled his eyes. “I barely touched you!” 

“Tega, stop touching little boys, and Lael, stop screaming like a fucking Godzilla. We aren’t in the Saw trilogy!” Macy snapped at the both of them. 

“Stop touching- Macy !!” Xavier flabbergasted at her. 

“What, I’m not wrong!” Macy retorted

“Hey, shits!” Piper called out to everyone, exiting the kitchen. Her and Harris had decided to take this time to unpack all the goods they retrieved from Piper’s house into the kitchen. “I’m gonna go outside to plant some of this stuff. Who wants to help me out?”

Practically everyone (that wasn’t Izaiah)  started shouting that they wanted to go out. 

“Wait- plant? You have seeds?” Polly asked, sitting up. “Oh, so like- a garden?” 

“Yeah! So we can grow our own food!” Piper agreed. 

“You guys know how to plant stuff?” Lael asked, curious. 

“Not really.” Piper admitted. 

“Oh, I sort of do!” Lochlan mentioned. “C’mon let’s head out!” 

“Wait! Hold on, I wanna come too.” Macy said, making her way off the couch. “I’ve been contained in this box for too long. I needa let my demons out and touch grass.” 

- - - - -

Outside was getting colder. 

Piper had said to steal the neighbours garden thing, since they had one pre-made already. They all walked over to their backyard and inspected the dirt. 

“So.” Piper blinked. “We just dig it up or something or what?” 

“Yeah, you plant the seed inside the dirt.” Polly instructed. 

“Wow, really? I thought you ate the seed whole.” Piper replied sarcastically before walking over and bending down (sussy) to plant the seed. 

“D’you have any more seeds? Maybe we can help out instead of, y’know. Standing here.” Polly requested. 

“Uh, yeah, take these.” The psychopathic Swiftie responded absentmindedly, holding out the baggie of seeds. 

Claire took the bag and pulled out a couple of seeds. She offered them to everyone who wanted to plant one in. When everyone got their fair share of seeds, she closed up the bag and handed it back to Piper. 

Claire inspected the seed. “What do these grow into?” She asked curiously. 

“Uh, I think carrots or something.” Piper shrugged. “Now, are you going to help me or just stand there??” 

And like that, Piper had gotten the children voluntarily to do manual labour with her. Most of the kids agreed instantly, others took a bit more convincing. Luckily, Macy threatened to burn their fingers off, then suddenly, everyone was in a working mood! 

After planting one seed inside the earth, Macy decided to take a break. She’s been meaning to go see what it was like in Vermillion after all the infestations. Lately, even before the uprising, there’s been a lot more crawl in Dauphin than there used to be, which got people interested. And concerned. So much crawl had grown in Vermillion, that the park had to fully close down a week or two ago, which sucked.

Macy stood up. “I’m gonna check out Vermillion.” She told the group. “Anyone wanna come with me?” 

“No thanks, be safe” Piper replied absentmindedly, focusing on gardening or some shit. 

“Wait- no, Macy.” Xavier butted in, earning a groan from the imposter ginger. “If you’re gonna go somewhere, I should go with you, at least.”

Macy side eyed them. “I… okay?” Macy expected Xavier to yell at her for such a stupid idea, but she was glad they didn’t. 

“Seeya guys.” She said, waving. Some of the kids waved goodbye to her as well, and Macy thought up a list of ways the kids who didn’t wave back could die. 

- - - - -

“Damn, when they said there was a lot of crawl in Vermillion, I didn’t think there would be this much crawl.”  Macy gaped, making sure to step over the growing tendrils so she wouldn’t trip on them. 

A lot has changed since the last time she visited Vermillion, that’s for sure. 

“If only the crawl didn’t turn people into mimics. Then we’d never run out of food.” Xavier sighed, slashing at the vine-like things with their axe instead of just stepping over. Macy didn’t even remember seeing Xavier bring their axe. 

“Hey guys!!” 

Macy screamed bloody murder and Xavier swore like a sailor when they both heard the voice. They snapped their attention to the direction of the noise and were surprised to see Daphne there. 

“DAPHNE WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?” Macy hollered, glaring at the mischievous little goblin. 

“Sorry!” She chuckled. “I saw you two leaving and I wanted to tag along!” 

“Jesus Christ Da- Doritos..” Xavier groaned. “Don’t just sneak up on us like that next time. I might hit you with my axe.” 

“Yeah, yeah, I won’t.” Daphne agreed. “So, what were y’alls doing out here?” 

“Trying not to get caught by mimics.” Xavier glared at Macy. “As much as I like killing mimics, Macy, you need to shut up.”

“Grah.” Macy replied with a dismissive wave of her hand, and turned away. “Now c’mon. I wanna explore this place some more. 

The trio made their way through the infested park. Xavier led because they ‘had the weapon’ or some shit, Daphne in the middle so they could ask fifty questions a second and get a clearer answer, and Macy in the back because they were walking so damn fast. 

“Can you guys slow down??” Macy complained, dragging her feet along and almost tripping on some of the fucking tendrils. 

“Well, womp womp!” Xavier rolled their eyes from the front end of the group. 

Macy groaned, but continued walking nonetheless. Daphne was still blubbering questions every five seconds, and even Xavier, who liked to flaunt their knowledge on Vita Carnis creatures any time they could, started becoming annoyed. 

“But how does that work?” Daphne asked. 

“Because that’s how it just works, dammit!” Xavier mumbled. 

“But how ?!” Daphne questioned

Macy paused, the conversation behind her fading into bits as she focused on something else. She glanced down to make sure she wasn’t going to pull a Freiah and collapse before walking closer towards it. She squinted. What the hell is that?- 

“Macy what the fuck are you doing!?” Xavier hollered, pulling Macy to the side behind a tree. Daphne followed close behind, even though Macy was sure she didn’t even know what was going on. 

“What? What’s wrong?” The blonde asked, and Macy gave herself a metaphorical pat on the back for being right. 

“Wha- ugh, you guys really should have listened to the videos.” Xavier rolled their eyes for the fiftieth time this trip. “Macy, you were walking towards a fucking Harvester.” 

“...A what ??” Macy questioned, and Xavier facepalmed. 

“Jesus Christ.” They sighed. “Harvesters. They’re shaped like eggs but they have these like, tentacle things underneath in the ground. If you step on one, they like, inject you with a paralyzing fluid or whatever, then drink your blood and pull your body underground to eat.” They explained. “Also your skin melts off or something.” 

“Cool!” Daphne grinned. 

“Yeah, I know right?” Xavier agreed, and they both giggled like little girls at a sleepover for a second. 

“Tentacle things?” Macy repeated a smirk on her face. Xaver then deadpanned at her. 

“Macy, no.” Xavier said disappointedly

“ Grah .” Macy said back

“Do you guys think we should go back now?” Daphne asked, looking at the two, then at the Harvester. “I mean, before we go too far and lose our way.” 

“First smart thing you’ve said this entire journey!” Xavier was amazed. 

“Boy, shut up.” Macy rolled her eyes. “Don’t be mean to the child, you poopoo head.” 

“Yeah! Don’t be mean to me, Xavier!” Daphne repeated, sticking her tongue out at the Scotland enthusiast. 

“Womp womp.” Xavier replied. “We’ll do some more exploring, then we’ll go back. How’s that?” They requested. 

Macy and Daphne shrugged, and Xavier probably took it as a yes, because they continued on through Vermillion. 

“Okay, good.” They said, even though Macy nor Daphne said anything. “Let’s remember this specific place so we know where to avoid unless we want to become one with the earth.” 

“Aw man, but I wanted to get my skin melted off!” Daphne complained. 

“Womp womp!” Xavier replied

“Xavier, that’s like the hundredth time you’ve said that.” Macy pointed out. 

“Well, womp womp .” Xavier replied again. 

- - - - -

After what seemed like hours of exploring, Macy, Xavier and Daphne finally made their way back to Tolu’s house. At first, they were all panicking because they couldn’t remember which way her house was. They did end up finding the damn place at the cost of being so shitting exhausted. 

“We have reached our destination! Finally!” Daphne panted, leaning against a tree. 

“Yeah, thanks to Xavier for taking us in circles half the time!” Macy fussed, glaring at the wannabe Scottish

“Sorry, okay! The trees all looked so similar!” They defended themself- well, tried to, atleast. 

“Ugh, whatever. I’m cold now, so I’m going inside.” Daphne muttered, making her way up the hill where Tolu’s house sat. “I’ll see you guys. Byeeee .” 

“We should follow her.” Macy suggested. “Unless you’re cool with getting jumpscared by a mimic.” 

“Oh, please. I love killing mimics!” Xavier flaunted. “If any come near, I’ll whack the hell outta ‘em with my axe!” They flashed their axe, and Macy stared at them, unimpressed. 

“You’d have a lot less scars right now if it weren’t for the mimics.” She pointed out. 

“Hey, these marks are a sign of strength and bravery.” Xavier snapped. 

“And stupidity.” Macy replied. “Like- bro. You keep getting yourself into dumb situations, and you end up with like- fifty scars. I’m honestly surprised that you aren’t dead yet.” 

“I’m like the purple guy, I always come back.” Xavier boasted. “And, you can’t be talking about me getting into dumb situations.” 

“Ugh, seriously?!” Macy groaned. 

“What? You’re the one who brought it up.” Xavier retorted, along with a smirk. They then opened their mouth to speak, but was stopped by a noise from behind them, somewhere in Vermillion. 

Macy, being the smart person she is, screamed out immediately. Xavier took a defensive stance, holding their axe out in front of them.

“We should run back to the house!!” Macy squealed. 

“Hell no! Not when I have a chance of defeating a mimic like this!” Xavier hissed. “Show yourself you motherfucker!” 

“Ugh, you stupid-” Macy groaned, before grabbing onto Xavier’s arm and dragging them up the hill towards Tolu’s house. She ignored their squabbling and complaining and focused on rushing their sorry asses back into the mansion-shaped-house that is Tolu’s home. 

“What the hell was that?!” Xavier shrieked, once Macy shoved the both of them inside of Tolu’s house. 

“Me saving your ass!!” Macy shrieked back, ten times louder. 

“Jesus! Don’t scream like that.” Xavier grumbled. 

“Grah.” Macy answered

“There you guys were!” Tolu appeared, hands curled into fists at her sides. “Doritos came by and I was wondering what was taking you guys so long.” She scowled. “Fries is awake now, too.” She added. 

“Oh. really?” Xavier asked. 

“Yeah, they’re resting up in my parents’ room with Harris and Elaina or something.” Tolu shrugged. 

“Harris? That’s surprising.” Xavier blinked. 

“Shut the fuck up.” Macy replied from beside them. “Tolu are you gonna yell at us.” She asked. 

“Yes!” Tolu answered. Then she paused. “Actually, no. You’re safe for now. My throat is tired.” 

“Tolu?? Not screaming at us for once??” Xavier said, astonished by such a thing happening as if it was the rarest thing in the world (it pretty much is, though). 

“I agree with you Xavier, what the fuck??” Macy side eyed her. “Are you sure you aren’t inhaling the spores again?”

“Wha- you two should be thankful!” Tolu spat; Ice Spice and Scot froze. 

“Yes.. ma’am .?” Macy questioned. 

“Huh… Good. I like that.” Tolu decided, before shaking it off. “Okay- whatever. Go do something to help us out here, or something.” She said, before walking off to god knows what. 

“...okay.” Macy blinked. “What do we do now?” 

Xavier turned to face her with an evil look on their face. A look that could only mean one thing… 

“Wanna play Uno?” 

Chapter Text

It’s been a couple days now. Or something- did you expect Harris to keep track? 

Well, whatever. It didn’t necessarily matter anyways, since everyone seemed to be getting used to this whole mimic-pocalypse, or whatever the kids called it. They’ve even somehow built a routine already? Well, Freiah did, and totally didn’t force everyone to follow it. 

Apparently, according to the calendar and Freiah’s excessive need to track the days, it was around March 26th, and this whole mess started on the 20th, which means they’ve spent about a week living off of Tolu’s mansion. Don’t get Harris wrong, the place was nice and all, but with the crawl so close to the house? Not his ideal definition of ‘safe ’.

Well, now it's the present time. 

Harris and Piper were in the kitchen, which they usually were as the almighty chefs in the house, a title they rightfully threatened everyone and their mothers for. 

“Hey, have you seen the spices?” Piper asked, looking through the cabinets. 

“Spices?” Harris asked. “What do we need spices for?” 

“The food? What else??” Piper rolled her eyes, climbing up the kitchen counter to get a better look through the shelves. Despite this technically being Tolu’s house, Harris and Piper treated the kitchen as their own home. 

“Ew you’re gonna get the counters dirty.” Harris grimaced (GRIMACE?!?!?!!?), glancing at Piper’s dogs in disgust. “And fall, but I’m more worried about the food getting dirty.” 

“We didn’t even put anything here!” Piper responded, sticking her tongue out as she looked through the cupboards. 

“You’re gonna get yourself killed, you beta.” Harris replied, just as sassily (idgaf if that’s not a word) as she was. 

Piper groaned. “I’m not going to-” She was cut off by a powerful shaking that shook the whole house (no shit). The swiftie yelped, and held onto the cabinets for dear life. Luckily, the shaking was only temporary. When it died down, Piper nervously got down. Harris used this moment of vulnerability to his advantage. 

“See??? I told you!” He rolled his eyes at Piper. But he wasn’t that cruel. “But are you okay though?” 

“Yeah, uh. I’ll be fine.” Piper blinked in reply, her tone three octaves higher than it usually was, which was a surprise considering how high her voice was. 

“Is everyone okay? I heard someone scream!” Freiah appeared at the doorway to the kitchen, although wisely keeping their distance away from it. They’ve luckily gotten used to staying away from the kitchen; everyone who wanted to stay alive has.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Piper breathed. “Damn, that was scary.” 

“Oh, Piper… did you get hurt?” Freiah asked in the sweet tone they always used when sympathizing with others. 

“Nah. I almost fell off the counter, though.” Piper explained. “I probably should not do that again.” 

“Yeah, you shouldn’t.” Freiah chuckled. 

“So what was that?” Harris asked, since it was odd for something like that to just happen. And no way it was just an earthquake! 

“Oh, so like uhm.” Freiah stammered. “Apparently, it was the crawl from Vermilion inching closer towards Tolus house.” They explained. “Because the Crawl can do that now, I guess. It shook the house, too, which probably means there’s some crawl under the house, as well.” They finished with a shrug. “That’s Xavier’s theory.” 

“Of course it’s Xavier’s theory.” Piper sighed. 

“Wait- the crawl is moving ?” Harris repeated. How was that even possible? 

Freiah gave him a quizzical look. “...yeah? We literally talked about it last night? D’you not remember Tolu’s rant about how she was going to burn down Vermillion for infesting her house?” 

Harris blinked. They talked about that last night? All he could remember was eating and Lael yapping about something nobody wanted to hear. 

Freiah waved it off like the good beta they were. “Y’know what? We’ll discuss it later. I have things to prepare.” They paused and glanced inside the kitchen, taking a small yet dangerous step towards it.. “What’re y’all-” 

“GET OUT OF THE SACRED SPACE!!!” Harris and Piper then hollered at the top of their lungs, which spooked the shit out of Freiah for a second. 

“Okay, okay!” Freiah replied, hands up in surrender. “I guess I’ll see y’all when the food’s ready. Damn!” 

Then they walked off so Harris and Piper could continue making the meal that Gordan Ramsey would have been eager to consume. 

- - - - - 

Harris slipped some of the pasta he and Piper made into his mouth. The meal was spiceless after Xavier ranted about how they should all be careful with what they’re putting into the food after finding that host spore spice in Piper’s hands. Seriously- why the fuck did people make that?? 

“So, we’re going to leave?” Polly asked, glancing towards everyone. All eighteen of them were seated around Tolu’s couch, since group discussion or something. 

“Yeah, we can’t stay here with the crawl getting so close.” Xavier explained. They’ve been doing most of the explaining for a while now. Even though most of it was helpful, Harris found it a little annoying at times. 

“It might trap us here, if we stay here any longer.” They added.

“If you’re so worried about the crawl taking over the house or whatever, then why did you let me, Izaiah and Parker sleep outside last night??” Lael interrupted with a huff. “It was so cold out there!” 

“You guys did what ?!” Freiah snapped, glaring at Xavier. 

“Oh please, we did you a favour !” Piper rolled her eyes. “They’ve been annoying us to bits this entire time! Of course we’re gonna give them some form of punishment!” 

“I don’t mind punishment , but they could have died out there!” Fries retorted, sounding hurt.

“Yeah, oh well. Sorry, not sorry Fries.” Tolu shrugged, sipping some orange crush even though Harris could have sworn they had run out a day or so ago. 

Freiah only responded with a grumble complaining that they should never have gotten a healthy sleep schedule; Xavier continued. 

“So, maybe by today or tomorrow we should leave?” They suggested, looking around the group of kids for a response.

“Maybe like- today?” Harris requested. “I mean, if it’s really a big deal then we should probably get going as soon as we can.” 

Nobody argued.

“Yeah, I agree with him.” Daphne nodded. “Some time after lunch?” 

“Eh, seems reasonable.” Xavier shrugged. “After lunch it is, then. But we should still finish our food. And squeeze in another game of Uno.” 

“Do you have some sort of Uno addiction, Xavier??” Claire asked, taking a bite out of her pasta. 

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t.” Xavier responded like the cold mysterious alpha bad boy they are. “Now c’mon, finish your food quickly.” 

- - - - - 

“Do we have everything?” Freiah asked, glancing around the group. 

“Yeah! Wait- no..” Parker murmured, then ran off somewhere, which emanated a groan of exasperation from everyone. This was about the seventh time he’s done that. 

“Can’t we just leave him here??” Polly complained. 

“As much as I'd love to do that, no.” Freiah answered calmly, shifting the weight of their bag. 

“Where are we heading to, again?” Izaiah asked. 

“My house..? I think?” Freiah replied, glancing at Xavier for an answer. 

“Yeah, Freiah’s house for now.” They answered. 

“What about my house? It’s a lot bigger and we have extra beds and shit.” Macy requested. 

“Or we could just stay here.” Tolu grumbled, definitely pissed about having to go to another house instead of just staying here at hers. “We can just fight off the crawl or something!”

“Tolu, no. And you know why.” Xavier responded. 

“Then why are we going to Fries’ house?? It’s a lot farther!” 

“...true..” Xavier mumbled. 

“Yeah, I don't even know why we’re going to my house.” Freiah blinked. 

“I have reasons!” Kaela interrupted, then cleared her throat, so you know that this was going to be long and boring. “One, Fries’ house is about in the middle of all of our houses, so we can hang out there, but have other close options if we need to leave. It’s also safe, since it’s pretty far away from crawl and other potential dangers, like on main street with the roaming mimics and Vermillion’s crawl infection.” 

“And it’s the house we’re all mostly somewhat familiar with, I guess.” She finished with a shrug. “That’s just my thoughts, though.”

“ Coughcough nerd- coughcough..”  Harris totally didn’t say. Kaela shot him a look that clearly meant ‘I’m going to kill you’, but (un)luckily for her, he just mewed in response. 

“Okay..” Tolu blinked, glazing at the two of them with disgust. “But I guess those are good reasons.” 

“I’m back!!” Parker declared, running out of some room. “I found it!” He announced, holding up a run-down fake Disney sword as if it were a blessing from the lord, but regarding the fact that it’s Parker holding it, he probably did see it as one. 

“That’s going to get you killed, not help you kill things, Parker.” Claire commented, her trusty saw shining with malicious intent from the sunlight outside. 

“Nuh uh!” He replied, sticking his tongue out at her. 

“Okay, cut it out!” Tolu snapped. “We’re gonna go now, whether we’re ready or not.” 

“Wait, shouldn’t I take attendance first?” Freiah requested sweetly. 

“...Okay, fine!” Tolu grumbled. 

Freiah smiled and looked at their list. “Macy?”

“Grah.” Macy answered. 

“Okay..  uh, Elaina?”

“Huh??” The pink woman replied, zoning back into reality.

“Alright.. Erm, Piper?”

“Wha- here.” Piper blinked. 

“M’kay.. uh, Tolu? Yep, you’re here…” Freiah hummed. “Okay, Izaiah?-”

“Okay, we’re all here.” Tolu butted in, shoving Freiah ‘lightly’ on the shoulder. They shot Tolu a hurt look but didn’t get to respond due to getting interrupted again.

“Now, let’s just get moving already!” The white people hater grumbled, already forcing the door open. 

Unfortunately, the first thing Tolu witnessed once she opened the door wasn’t the great outdoors. No. Crawl covered the entrance like vines in a forest. Tolu scoffed, exasperated at the sight. “Wow. Just great.” She rolled her eyes. 

“Here, I’ve got this.” Xavier said confidently, slashing at the crawl. With one swipe, one of the meaty ropes cut off, hitting the ground with a thud. Although, when they kept cutting, the crawl seemed to get even tougher, making it more difficult to cut through. 

“Hey Parker. I dare you to eat that crawl.” Harris heard Izaiah whisper over to the Slim Shady impressionist while Tolu was yelling at Xavier for being ‘weak’.

Parker shrugged. “Okay.” 

“Wha- no don’t eat it!??” James said, glaring at both Izaiah and Parker. 

“Why not?” Macy appeared. “C’mon Parker, do it. And give it a rating, too.” 

“A rating ??” Tega giggled. 

“Yeah, how else are we supposed to know if it’s good or not?” Harris snickered. 

Parker glanced down at the crawl and shrugged again. “Alright.” He said, walking towards it. Fortunately, Tolu and Xavier were too busy arguing to notice him crouching down and take a hold of the crawl- 

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” Piper scolded. “As much as I’d like to see what would happen to you if you mimicked out from eating the crawl, I really don’t want to deal with that right now.” 

“But they dared me to eat it!” Parker replied, pointing towards Izaiah, Macy, Harris, and Tega- nope, he was skedaddling away. Great. Just wonderful. 

“Ugh- guys!” The blonde rolled her eyes. “We can see what happens when we feed him crawl at Freiah’s house. Not now. I already have a heavy bag to carry, and I don’t want to be running with it.” 

“Awh… fineee.” Izaiah sighed. 

“Ha! See!!?? It’s not that hard, you wuss .” Tolu celebrated, and everyone turned to see her holding Xavier’s axe, a pile of red tendrils at her feet. 

“Tolu- just, shut up.” Xavier grumbled, snatching their axe back from her. 

“ Ah-ah ! What did you just-” 

“Okay, we’re going now.” Harris interrupted. God, he was not going to listen to another five hour long Tolu and Xavier argument right now. 

“Yep! C’mon, let’s go.” Freiah agreed, probably just as fed up as Harris was with the constant bickering. They ushered the two enemies out so that the rest of the group could follow. 

“It looks kind of cloudy right now..” Polly pointed out when everyone was finally outside. “What if it rains?” 

“Then we should be walking quicker.” Tolu answered, irritated for whatever reason now. “Move your asses or else we’re leaving you.”  

“You mean you’ll leave us.” Kaela said. 

“Exactly!” 

- - - - -

They hadn't even been walking for very long when Tolu and Harris found two Glocks on someone’s front lawn. Being the people they are, they instantly ran up to the weapons to add them to their inventories. 

Harris reached out for the bigger glock, but unfortunately Tolu snatched it up before him. Harris screeched at her, but wasted no time picking up the second gun. It was a 10 mm, which was unfortunate since those types had too much recoil, but a gun was better than no gun. 

“Ha! Check this baby out!” Tolu celebrated, observing her new weapon. 

“Tolu, you’re checking out a baby ?!” Tega asked, horrified. 

“Wha- ‘kay , you know that’s not what I said.” Tolu snapped, walking back towards the group. Harris followed suit. 

“What’d you guys find over there- oh!” Freiah’s eyes widened at seeing the guns. “Oh…” 

“Wait- you guys have guns?! No fair!!” Lael complained. 

“Zip it, beta!” Harris responded. 

“First off, don’t call my children betas,” Freiah started with some disappointed mom tone. “Second of all, why the fuck are there guns on someone’s lawn?” 

“You expect us to know?” Tolu rolled her eyes, then felt a light force hit her from the sky. “Oh, don’t tell me…” 

“I think it’s gonna rain.” Lochlan commented, cracking his neck (Griffin core) to look straight up at the sky. 

“Yeah… thanks for that, Lochlan.” Freiah nodded, throwing on a forced smile as they looked up as well. “Damn, we should get moving.” 

“Already ahead of you!” Piper said before skedaddling. “Both metaphorically and literally!!” 

“Wha- Piper !” Tolu hollered, angrily stomping towards her. 

Everybody started following along, running after Piper until they didn’t need to anymore. Now, everyone was just walking at a normal pace. Harris somehow found himself at the back of the group, along with Elaina and Izaiah. Xavier went to pester Tolu with questions about the guns instead of him, so that was that. 

“Awh- why not?” Izaiah complained when he asked Harris if he could hold the gun and Harris replied with no. 

“Because you’re gonna break it, lose it, or steal it.” Harris answered. “And I do not trust you at all , buddy.” 

“Good choice.” Elaina laughed. The rain was really coming in, now.

“Ugh- you guys are no fun.” Izaiah grumbled, walking quicker to go bother James or something. 

“We should use him as bait for the mimics.” Elaina suggested, and Harris laughed thinking about it. 

“Yeah- didn’t he make a slur for them?” He asked.

“Oh my god, yeah, he did !” Elaina confirmed, thinking back to when a mimic was at the door and Izaiah made a whole ass slur for it. “That was… something.”

“I’m not even surprised, at this point.” Harris shrugged. “I mean- it’s Izaiah .” 

“True.” Elaina nodded. 

Suddenly, a scream rang out from the group. From the sound of it, you’d think it was Claire or Kaela or something, but nah, it was Lael, and he just saw a mimic emerge from around one of the houses. 

Harris froze for a second, staring blankly at the creature before absolutely booking it. Just like everyone else. 

Unfortunately, unlike most of the group, he wasn’t gifted with fucking lightning speed. He wondered how the hell Isaiah was already two blocks ahead and was waiting patiently for everyone to catch up. Harris half-expected him to pull out a picnic basket and just snack while everyone almost dies.

The bag Harris was carrying definitely did not help him at all. For some reason, he got tasked with carrying all the heavy cookbooks to Freiah’s house, which was a really bad decision if you asked him. 

Oh well, no time to think about goddamn recipes because Harris was literally about to die. He was already writing his last will and testament. ‘I’d like to pay off my debt with all the remaining robux I have and that Korben stays the fuck away from my body...’

Fuck- the mimic was definitely getting closer, and he was running out of stamina. Quickly. Harris could practically feel its presence right behind him-

Then it wasn’t.

Harris wasn’t sure if he should keep running or not, but it was getting a little hard to breathe, so he thought he could take a couple of seconds to regain himself before he ran again. 

You can’t particularly say that he was expecting Elaina to be fending the damn thing off.

Harris stared at the situation dumbfounded. Elaina was fighting against a mimic… and winning ? 

The giraffe was not as tall as the mimic per se, but she was still beating its ass super hard. She threw its arms off of her, and then pushed the mimic to the ground. Harris could hear the thing cry out as Elaina… What was she doing ? 

The mewer (ran out of epithets:P) attempted to take a couple more steps towards where the rest of the group had skedaddled off to, but he felt like he should watch how Elaina was holding up. Plus, he couldn’t just leave her there! Especially if she didn’t…-

He turned back again to see the mimic down on the ground, its limbs sprawled out on the ground. Elaina was hunched over it, gasping for air and staring down at the creature. Harris noticed a splatter of blood tracing her mouth. Her head twitched, and she locked eyes with Harris for a moment, and each second he spent looking back at those wide, lifeless eyes, he felt a sense of primal fear course through his spine.

Harris ran. 

- - - - -

“There you are!” Freiah shrieked when Harris finally made it to the destination. Everyone was chilling on the patio in the backyard, and from Harris could tell, only Freiah and Kaela were out in the front. Waiting for him . For Elaina . 

Harris didn’t get to process anything when Freiah suddenly ran up to him, their eyes telling him that they’ve been worried sick. Harris could only remember the way Elaina stared back at him when he looked into Freiah’s eyes-

“I was so fucking worried !” Freiah clutched the necklace Harris had given them a long time ago. Pretty much a year now. Can you believe that? “Elaina said that you got lost behind, and- and that she couldn’t check if you were with us or not… then it was too late when she got her answer. I’m so glad you’re okay!” They cried. 

... Elaina ?

“Wait- but. Elaina was-” Harris stammered, before a familiar person rounded the corner of Freiah’s house. 

He froze.

“Harris! That’s where your blue ass is!” Elaina rolled her eyes as if nothing happened before. “You literally gave all of us a heart attack!! Now move your short little legs in here.”

Chapter Text

I blinked at the situation in front of me. Elbows propped up on my knees, chin my palms as you would.

Look, when I volunteered to sit out on the steps of Fries’ front door to wait for Harris to come back with the milk, this isn’t what I was expecting. I was expecting the guy to never come back and that Fries finally realizes that he just isn’t that and moves on after five minutes but noooooooo, this had to happen. And I don’t even know what this was. 

First off, I had to be right next to Fries when they noticed Harris was alive (which was REALLY fucking loud), watched them run towards said person so fast Isaiah would’ve been jealous, then bombard him with concern and questions, and then watch Harris lose his shit when Elaina walked around the corner. Like- what the hell?? 

“Elaina what the fuck?!” Harris spat in a tone so bitter I felt my jaw hit the ground. I had no idea he had the ability to sound that serious. 

“Huh??” Elaina huh’ed. “I didn’t-“ 

“Don’t play dumb with me! What the hell was that?!” Harris demanded, alternating on his feet, as if questioning if he should run up and kick Elaina or run away from her. Fries rubbed the back of their head awkwardly. 

“Uhm- how about we discuss this later.. inside? Where we’re not all at risk of getting attacked and a lot drier?” They suggested, looking towards the two nervously. 

Oh yeah, I forgot about the pouring rain that was pounding on us right now. I stood up from where I was sitting, and turned to go in through the front door. Did I care that I was supposed to go in through the back? Not right now. 

I don’t even think Fries minded. I heard them negotiating with Harris and Elaina. I could hear Harris’ voice crack as he spat out that he wanted to be as far away from the pink woman as possible. 

‘Geez, who shat in your cereal this morning?’ I thought, before stepping into the house. 

- - - - - 

I wasn’t that awful, though. I took my shoes off! 

When first entering the house, I could already see Lael, Tega, Parker and the two Is/zaiahs hanging out in the living room, picking fun at the family pictures that were hung above the tv. I told them to shut up before walking across the hall to throw my shoes next to the back door. There were like fifty other pairs down there now, all belonging to the other fourteen people now in the house. 

I was about to trot down the hall in search for Daphne, Polly and Claire when Fries, Harris and Elaina entered in through the back door. They were quiet, with Harris making intense eye contact with the floor while sweating beads for breathing the same air as Elaina, and Elaina herself just looking bewildered as ever. 

Fries opened their mouth and told the other two something. Harris shot a glare towards Elaina, and murmured something bitter towards Elaina, who then raised her hands up in defense, her expression pressed and genuinely confused as ever. 

I scooted towards the edge of the hallway, trying to snoop without being obvious. 

“Hey!!” Daphne exclaimed, jumping out of nowhere, promptly scaring the shit out of me. I shrieked, but tried not to be too loud to alert Fries, Harris or Elaina of what I was plotting to do. 

“Not so loud!!” I whisper-yelled back, and gestured to the trio, still in the small pit near the backdoor. 

Daphne peeked around the wall and squinted. “ Ooohhhh ..” She nodded. “We’re spying on them!” 

“Yes!” I confirmed. “So don’t be so loud or else they’re gonna hear us!” 

Well, the three had already heard us, but they didn’t really seem to care. They probably just brushed it off as regular goofy shenanigans the kids are up to (but to be fair, they weren’t necessarily wrong). 

“Do we want to talk about it?-” Fries started asking, their tone reminding me a lot of my therapist. Huh I wonder how she’s doing, actually. 

“Yeah. We should.” Harris swallowed. “Either I’m schizophrenic, or you’re a fucking mimic, Elaina.” He sighed, rubbing his head. “Maybe it’s the host spores kicking in again…” 

“Did you not take the pills this morning?” Fries asked, giving the mewer a disappointed mom look. 

“I was supposed to?” Harris had the audacity to ask. I would have stomped right up to him and kicked him in the stomach if I hadn’t turned on my super spy mode.

Fries sighed and rolled their eyes, muttering some under their breath ( ‘you idiot why the fuck do I like you’ -I hope). 

“Are we gonna talk about whatever Harris wanted to talk about now or?” Elaina then butted in. 

“Oh, yeah- uhmm..” Fries remembered. 

“Let’s go to the basement.” Harris suggested, cautiously eyeing Elaina. “After you.” He urged, gesturing at Elaina to go down. 

“Fine.” Elaina scoffed, pretending to smack Harris in the head. I saw fear quickly flash through his eyes as he flinched. I almost felt bad. The three then started to leave and I couldn’t help but watch helplessly as they did. 

Once they fully exited the frame, I groaned. “Ugh, why couldn’t they just argue up here?!” I complained. “I wanted to be a super spy and eavesdrop!” I threw my face into my hands so I could have my tragically angsty wattpad scene.

Daphne giggled. “There there.” She comforted, patting my shoulder harshly, which caused me to yelp. “What even happened though??” She then asked. “I just saw Harris, Elaina and Fries enter but I have no idea what they did, or what happened to Harris!” 

“Oh, he like, got left behind or something and hallucinated.” I waved off, not even entirely sure of the story myself. “That’s all I got from what I heard.” 

Daphne seemed to accept that was all she needed to know because she just ‘okayed’ and changed the subject. “So what’d you wanna do now?” 

I looked around. “No clue. Where’s Polly and Claire?”

“They’re hanging out in Lance’s room, c’mon.” Daphne answered, starting to pull me along to the sleeping quarters of Fries’ demon brother. 

Before she could though, my dumbass remembered the front door. How the fuck did I forget to close the damn thing?? It was full-on pouring outside, did no one mind it?

“Oh, whoops.” I squeaked, pulling myself away from Daphne’s grip as I walked back towards the door. I felt Daphne following behind.

Piper’s dog- Penny I think her name was? Was staring outside the window, looking at the rain as it fell from the sky. Hopefully she wasn’t hoping to ditch us and have a tea party with Harris’ dog. 

Lael was already pestering her with attention, with Macy trying to shoo him away so she can do the same thing as well. 

“Get away from her you stupid child!” Macy rolled her eyes, trying to steal the dog from the Asian. 

“Hey! She called me stupid!” Lael hollered back. “Fries!! Where’s Fries?? She called me stupid!!” He complained, pointing accusingly at the Melaine Martinez enthusiast, who just grah’ed at him in response. 

“Is she wrong?” Tega deadpanned, and Lael snapped his attention to the sassy one with all the offense taken. 

“Oh you little!-” 

I stopped listening when I heard a sound from the other side of the exterior screen door thing. I still have not closed it, as you can see. 

I walked towards said door, and squinted. It was a living thing, that’s for sure, and it was making these cat noises and- Bill?! Bill, the adored cat that roamed the streets of Wellington! Everyone who lived there knew him, and loved him very much. Who wouldn’t? He must have followed us while we were walking towards Fries’ house! Wait- it was raining!

“Oh no- sorry Bill!” I cried, opening the door quickly, taking the feline into my hands and shutting the door as quickly as I had opened it. I petted the cat in my arms, listening to him purr in response. 

“Yoo- Kaela is that a cat?!” Daphne gasped, noticing the newcomer. 

“Kitty?! Where?!” Tega responded frantically, snapping his head towards me so quickly I felt my soul ascend for a second. 

“Uh, Bill.” I introduced, and upon that, literally everyone in the living room gathered.

“Ooooh… Can I hold it?” Lael asked, reaching out to take the animal from me. I felt my throat tighten as I backed away. 

“No! I wanna hold the kitty first!” Tega huffed, glaring daggers at Lael. 

The two had their own little staring contest for a hot minute or so. By then, the other older kids (that weren’t having an Among Us emergency meeting) made an appearance. Tolu, Xavier and Piper exited from the dining table where they were chatting (probably about the best torture methods) and went to check out the commotion. Polly and Claire decided to see what was up, too. 

“What’s- oh my god is that Bill??” Piper asked, jogging over to the group now. She then just sort of scooped Bill out of my arms, which, uh, ask for consent first, but alright I guess… 

Then, everyone fawned over Bill, but around Piper this time, paying me no mind anymore, which, damn , okay!!

From the corner of my eye, I noticed Fries and Harris hastily making their way up the stairs. Harris looked exhausted as shit, and even I knew I couldn’t blame him for it. Bro got lost, then ran a marathon because of something he thought he saw. Seriously. 

I watched as Fries led him down the hallway and into what I’m guessing is their room. Ugh, no fair! How come Harris gets to sleep in the comfy bed?? Oh well, maybe if I’m lucky Fries was leading him to Lance’s room so he could sleep in the small bed with that balding Olaf plushie Lance still had for some reason. 

Elaina then emerged from the stairs. As much as I tried, I couldn’t read her expression. Somewhere between distraught and confusion. Relatable. 

I waved the pink woman over, and she looked side to side as if crossing a nonexistent road before making her way towards this animal enthusiasts club. 

“Sup rice muncher #2?” She asked as she approached the group

“Hi to you too..?” I replied, side-eyeing her for the nickname she gave me. I wasn’t surprised, though. 

“What’s going on?” She asked, gesturing towards the crowd around the new guest. “I see a lot has happened since I got forced into the down-under for absolutely no reason other than to stand there.” 

“So Bill, the cat that roams Wellington every now and then followed us here.” I answered, pointing towards the feline. “Everyone’s been fawning over him ever since.”

“Well, can you blame them??” Elaina responded. “It’s a cat.”

“True.” I nodded. “How’s Harris? He better not have inhaled the damn spores again.”

Elaina shook her head, but giggled. “Nah, he’s just hallucinating shit now.”

“Oh okay. Cool.” I tried not to giggle at the thought of Harris going apeshit from imagining Willy Wonka busting down the front door to make us all work as his slaves. Thankfully, I don’t think Fries or anyone else near me cared enough. 

“So..” Elaina whistled after a good moment of awkward silence. “Wanna unpack? I think we should before the roaches make our Paw Patrol backpacks their new homes..”

- - - - -

Unpacking was… unpacking? What am I supposed to say? 

Anyhoo, me and Elaina were looking through the bags, taking the stuff out and finding places to put them. Somehow, Piper still had like- eighty goldfish packets which- thanks, but how??? I stuffed them all into some drawer. Gee, hopefully Fries doesn’t yell at us for putting things in the wrong spots. 

Elaina took the cookbooks from the bag Harris carried. They were much dirtier from the last time I saw them. I wonder if he fell when he got separated from everyone. The pink woman placed the fine literature onto the counter. 

“We’ll find somewhere to put these later,” She had said, gesturing to the books. “We have other stuff.” 

Soon enough, Piper joined in to help us out. She said she wanted to be there when figuring out where all the food stuff went so she could familiarize herself with the new cooking environment. 

“It’s definitely smaller than Tolu’s kitchen,” the blondie had observed, looking around the place. “But it’ll do. Plus, it feels cozier.” Then she dug into one of the nearest bags to continue sorting.

“It probably feels cozier because you can actually reach some of the top cupboards” The tall one added while grinning menacingly.

Piper turned around and looked at her like she was deciding whether or not to throw herself at her.
“Shut up.” She said, choosing the pacifist ending. That was probably the better option.

They both went back to unpacking. Elaina was chuckling to herself while Piper was probably making a list of ways to kill the giraffe.

There weren't that many bags in total. Just a few to carry extra food, supplies, and other shit that they wanted to bring along. I pulled out a couple of hundred dollar bills, all summing up to six hundred after a quick count. No doubt Lael shoved that in there when exploring Tolu’s house. 

Elaina had just taken some of the dog food from my hands and kept it out of my reach when Xavier entered. 

“What are you doing?” They asked in their fake Scottish accent, side eyeing all of us. 

“Being responsible!” Piper replied almost immediately, and stuck her tongue out at the SMG4 enthusiast. “Now scram if you don’t want to help!” 

“Ugh fine, but first..” They dug into their pant pockets, eyes glued as if concentrating on watching paint dry. They pulled out their middle finger. Piper stared back in pure shock as Xavier giggled evilly and griddied away. 

“What was that?” I laughed. 

“Xavier’s last words before I beat their ass!” Piper scowled, angrily marching towards where Xavier had left. 

Me and Elaina blinked, then glanced at each other. Then we miraculously mewed at each other at the same time. That was definitely a sign from the gods themselves. 

“What is wrong with us?” Elaina sighed, unleashing the chemical romance inside of her. 

“Everything.” I decided, and she agreed. 

- - - - - 

“I just don’t get it!” Macy grumbled. Me, Macy, Polly, Claire and Tolu were all on the couch in Fries’ living room, rain pattering much harder than before outside of the window. “How come Harris doesn’t get in trouble when he gets cut from the group but I do?!”

“They’re two different situations, Macy.” Tolu rolled her eyes. “Harris got lost from the group, you openly chose to leave us.”

“Are we seriously still talking about this?” Claire asked. 

“Yeah, it was literally like- a month ago!” Polly added. 

“A month??” Macy questioned. 

“Polly, are you on something?” I asked. 

“I’m going to ignore that.” Tolu decided, and turned back to Macy. “Fake Ginger,” she started, and Macy opened her mouth to argue, but Tolu cut her off. “You chose to leave, Harris did not. You came back with few injuries, Harris came back with schizophrenia. It is not the same.” 

Macy sighed. “Okay, alright, fine..” She shrugged. “But why does he get to sleep in Freiah’s bed? That’s unfair!” 

“Yeah, that’s kinda true, though.” I nodded, scowling at the thought of Fries and Harris interacting for more than five milliseconds. 

“It’s cause they’re in love or something.” Tolu rolled her eyes. That caused everyone to giggle. 

“Is the rain just going to keep going like that?” Polly asked, looking out the window. Pools of rain water were now piling up on the road. I was tempted to just run out and jump into a puddle, but I bet no one would’ve let me. 

Claire frowned. “I’m not sure. Do we have wifi?” She asked. “Maybe we could check the forecast? I’d like to go outside again soon.” 

“We can still go out, y’know.” Macy said. “It’s just a lil wet.”

“Just like your mom last night.” I grinned mischievously, and I got a mixture of looks ranging from terrified to ‘omg you’re such a comedian’. 

“Kaela, you’re getting touched tonight.” Macy responded with a dead look.  

“What?!?!” Claire, Polly and Tolu gaped at the same time, but Macy’s expression only shifted into smugness.  

“I’m scared. Bye.” I immediately stood up, and ran down the hall towards Narnia. 

Only to be jumpscared. 

Chapter Text

Daphne was a good two inches away from the kitchen (so she wouldn’t get beaten to death) as she chatted with Piper from the dining table when she heard a loud, yet familiar shriek emanate from the hallway nearby.

The tree namesake flinched, then shot a confused glance towards the noise, then back at Piper, who just shrugged back. Wow, how extremely helpful. Daphne stood up and trudged along herself, passing by Tolu, Polly and Claire in the living room who seemed equally bamboozled as she was. 

When Daphne finally got to her destination, she wasn’t sure if she should have been surprised or not to see Kaela on the ground, and Harris just staring down at her. 

“What the sigma?” Harris frowned. 

“Where the fuck did you come from?!?” Kaela hollered, not even making an attempt to get up from where she'd fallen. 

“I could ask you the same question.” Harris blinked in response. 

“What happened??” Daphne asked, trying to hold back giggles as she stared at the scene in front of her. Kaela yelped at the new voice, and almost fell down again (despite already being on the ground). 

“Well, HARRIS here just thought it was a great idea to just come out of nowhere and jumpscare me!!” Kaela huffed, now trying to get up. 

“What do you mean ‘came out of nowhere’ , I just walked out of a room.” Harris gestured wildly to the heavily decorated door which led to Fries’ own bedroom. “Kaela you’re on something.”

“You sure you aren’t on something??” Kaela countered with a pout. “You’re the one hallucinating shit!” 

“ You’re the one who’s gonna mimic out on all of us.” Harris replied with an eye roll. 

“Why does everyone think I’m a mimic?!” Kaela groaned, shoving her face in her hands before recklessly stumbling towards Daphne’s embrace. 

Daphne blinked. “Kaela wha-” 

“Let’s go, Daphne. I can’t stand him anymore.” Kaela fake-sobbed into Daphne’s shoulder, and Daphne comfortingly patted her back (if slapping your friend’s shoulder with all the willpower in your arm is comforting). She shot a glare towards Harris who just mewed at her.

Daphne rolled her eyes in reply and heaved Kaela off to some other place away from Harris so she wouldn’t have some sort of stroke. 

“Kaela, don’t tell me you fell again .” Claire deadpanned as Daphne gently set the tall Asian onto the ground (if dropping your friend from your grasp at full speed is gentle). 

“She did.” Daphne answered for her with a big nod. 

“Kaela- I swear to God.” Tolu groaned at her daughter’s stupidity. 

“How’d the ground taste?” Macy asked, and Polly tried not to burst out into laughter. 

“Like the ground.” Kaela hummed. 

“Oh my-” Tolu sighed, shoving her face in her hands. “You know what, I’m not doing this.” Then she stood up and left. The group could faintly hear Piper’s voice ring out, followed by Tolu’s, then Tolu stomped grumpily down the stairs. Yeah, Tolu had definitely stepped inside of the ‘Sacred Space’.

“Damn who shat in her cereal this morning?” Macy joked, but before anyone could either laugh or yell at her, thunder boomed from outside. A loud, deafening noise that was sure to throw a couple harvesters out of the ground. 

Kaela shrieked for the fiftieth time, Daphne doing the same as they both scooted away from the big window.  

“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT??!?!?” Macy hollered, screaming way louder than the thunder. 

“I think it was thunder.” Polly answered, blinking as she processed what the fuck just happened. 

“Wow, no really.” Claire stared at her. 

More thunder shook the house. 

“KEEP IT DOWN OVER THERE!! WE’RE TRYING TO COOK.” Piper snapped, but no one was really sure if she meant the group in the living room or the thunder outside. Then she ducked her head back into the kitchen, so there goes the chance of finding an answer to that. 

“If the weather keeps acting up like this, then we’ll never be able to raid places.” Daphne complained. 

“Well actually, we can still raid. It would just be rainy and stuff.” Kaela nerded out. 

“Kaela shut the fuck up.” Macy rolled her eyes, and opened her mouth to say something before getting interrupted by the more immature kids of the bunch.

“WOO FRESH RAIN!!!!”

“PARKER NO !!” 

Followed by the back door being slammed open, the sound of rain pattering outside flooding into the house. Daphne scooted closer to where she could see the door more clearly, and was faced with Lael attempting to restrain Parker from going outside, yelling insults at him to just stop. 

“LET ME GO!!!! I ACTUALLY WANT TO TOUCH GRASS FOR ONCE!!!!” Parker screamed at the short male asian. 

“YOU’RE GONNA GET SOAKED YOU IDIOT !!!!” Lael screamed back, using all the power he had to heave Parker away. Fries stomped up the stairs. 

“Parker- what the fuck??” They spat, trying to redirect the boy away from the door as well. “I don’t want one of you getting sick!” 

Parker let out a groan, and stomped his foot like a toddler having a tantrum. “But I wanna go out!” 

“Well, womp womp!” Xavier walked up the stairs, rolling their eyes. “No one’s going anywhere right now.” they walked over towards the door and squinted. “Freiah, I think your fence is breaking or something.” 

That immediately caused everyone near to crowd around the door, to try to see what Xavier was talking about. Daphne totally wasn’t part of it, though! Just kidding, she pushed Lael over so she could see better. 

Before Lael could push her back and call her a cunt, Fries squeezed in, attempting to take a peak of their own fence. Daphne saw them squint. “What the fergalicious..?” 

“HOLY SHIT IS THAT A MEAT-SNAKE??!!!” Daphne gaped, squinting herself as well as she pieced together what might be on the other side of the fence. 

The reason she thought there was a meat-snake on the other side of the fence was because of some holes that pierced through the fence, revealing a slight red body on the other side. And it was the first thing that came to her mind.

“A WHAT ?!?!” Lael snapped his head at Daphne, then back at the door window. 

“Oooh! Sounds fun!” Parker grinned, before pushing himself through the door, catching everyone off guard enough that no one stopped him. 

“Wha- Parker no!” Fries groaned, but the kid was already running outside in the pouring rain. “He’s so gonna catch a cold..” They grumbled, before reaching down to get their shoes on. 

By then, like, five more kids ran out, Daphne didn’t keep track of who, since she was also tugging her shoes on, urging Kaela to do the same so they could dance in the rain together and have fun. 

When she got outside, she was (for some reason) surprised to get wet, and zipped up her sweater so she wouldn’t be that cold. 

“Ah!” She squeaked, running across Fries’ backyard as more rain hit her. “Stop it!” She yelled, waving her fist at the sky, as if that’ll do anything. Kaela tumbled right beside her, giggling. 

“Daphne, do you wanna dance-“ Kaela began to say, before getting cut off by a shrill scream, similar to the one that alerted the group earlier of a mimic. 

“What is it now, Lael?” Daphne rolled her eyes, wiping some of the rain out of her glasses so she could squint disappointedly at the Korean more clearly. “It better not be something stupid.”

“Wow, you weren’t lying, Daphne!” Xavier exclaimed, and Daphne just noticed that they had climbed up on Fries’ fence, overlooking the other side. Wait- what?

“Wait, is there actually a meat-snake there?” Kaela asked curiously, frowning when the rain pounded harder. 

“Yeah!” Xavier answered, and a low groan was heard from the other side of the fence, which promptly scared the shit out of everyone for a second. 

“It’s gonna kill us all!” Parker cried, throwing his hands up like the dramatic guy he was. “I can’t die yet!” 

“Well, actually. meat-snakes aren’t really violent. They don’t bother anyone unless they bother them at first, mostly when eating.” Xavier nerded out. “But otherwise, they’re relatively harmless.” 

“So can we ride it?” Daphne asked, with a smile, but when everyone around her responded with side eyes and ‘ooos’, she knew she made a mistake. “Not like that!” she huffed. These people sometimes…

“Do you think we can tame it?” Kaela asked, walking over towards Xavier. “Or what should we do with it?” 

“Hmmm..” Xavier thought. “Maybe we could try to tame him tomorrow. I’m not quite sure how to do that yet..” 

“How do you know it’s a him?” Kaela snickered. 

Xavier shot her a blank stare before cautiously jumping down from the fence, making sure they didn't break a leg on the way down. The rain still hasn’t stopped, and everyone was pretty soaked. Daphne could feel herself shiver under this weather. 

“I’m going inside.” She decided, glaring at the sky and making her way back towards the door. 

“Wait for me!!” Kaela cried, running to catch up with the tall blonde. Daphne chuckled as she waited by the door for Kaela to catch up. Once she did, Daphne punched in the numbers of the code to open the door. It didn’t budge.

Kaela frowned. “Did you do it right?”

“I think..” Daphne murmured, before typing in the same numbers. Nope.

Kaela leaned in and watched Daphne punch in the numbers for the third time. “Wait- Daphne, you’re literally putting in ‘6-9-6-9’.” 

Daphne froze. “Whoops.” She blinked. She shook her head. “Sorry- I was thinking about the time Lael said that was the code.” 

“ Well , the actual code’s 1-0-2-3 or something.” Kaela laughed, and Daphne giggled along with her as she put those numbers in. The thing still didn’t light up in green like how it was supposed to when typing in the code.

“What the- huh??” Kaela questioned. 

“Open up you stupid door!” Daphne began to shout, starting to pound on the door as if it’ll magically open up for them that way. 

“You guys know that it’s already open, right?” Xavier deadpanned, jumpscaring the two for a second. The duo blinked at Xavier, then turned to each other. 

Daphne put her hand on the door handle and turned.

It opened. 

“We’re idiots.” Kaela sighed. 

“ Yep .” Daphne agreed. 

- - - - - 

The clock said five or something as Daphne lay on the couch, staring at the ceiling. Kaela hadn’t left her side, but her attention was on Bill, who was being cradled in her arms at the moment. 

Daphne hummed, thinking about something to do. Polly and Claire were in the living room as well, but they seemed to be occupying themselves. Oh, and James was positioned right next to Kaela; Daphne just noticed they were actually talking to each other. From bits of conversation she could hear, it was about Bill. 

All this pet thinking made Daphne’s mind trail back to her own dog. That energetic goober that Fries almost got bitten by when they visited that one time. Daphne missed her. The blonde’s mind then went to animals in general. With this whole apocalypse, what are the animals doing? It must be terrifying for them, that’s for sure. 

That’s when a slight conversation caught Daphne’s attention. She glanced at the others in the living room with her, but they seemed more invested in their own little worlds- not like Daphne minded that. 

She propped herself into a position where she could listen into this new conversation without one, making it obvious, and two, being uncomfortable. She didn’t really succeed with number two, but hey, whatever you have to do for some good tea. 

“We can’t be sure if he’s alive, Piper.” She heard Xavier’s voice from around the corner. Their tone was steady and sounded like they were explaining physics to a ninth grade class. Daphne’s curiosity piqued even further. 

“He is !” Piper stated. Her voice was about the opposite compared to Xavier’s: it was shaky, and with enough paying attention to, desperate . “He’s alive. I know it.” 

“...Piper, there are things we have to accept, okay?” Xavier sighed. “I know it’s hard, but just- c’mon.” 

Daphne didn’t hear Piper reply for a good moment. 

“I need to cook dinner.” She finally heard her say, followed by a chair being pushed back. Were they sitting at the dinner table this whole time? 

“Piper-” Xavier started. 

“I said I’m going to cook dinner.” Piper snapped, before sighing and going silent again.  “Where the fuck did Harris go..” Was the last thing Daphne heard her mutter before she walked out of the dining room. 

After a moment or two of waiting for something else to happen, Daphne gave up and just plopped back down into her original position, feeling a smile tug on her lips when she realized how much more comfortable it was compared to her other position. 

The tree namesake thought about what she had just listened into. Piper was clearly upset about someone being dead or not, actively arguing for the latter, and Xavier, being Xavier , told her that shit happens sometimes. 

Daphne frowned. Who could they be talking about? A family member? A friend? Daphne had already heard about Piper’s friend being impersonated by a mimic, everyone practically did now. But that then got resolved after Piper gave said friend a call when she, Fries and Elaina were out and about, so that was that. 

But then who could it be? Ugh, Daphne wanted answers, and she wanted them quickly. 

“Daphne!” Kaela shrieked, which jolted Daphne out of her thinking. 

“Wha- huh?” She blinked groggily, rubbing her eyes from under her glasses, which made her realize that she was closing her eyes whilst she was thinking. 

“We called your name like, fifty times already.” James said, his expression was a mix of apology and amusement. “I thought you were sleeping.” 

“Well, I’m not anymore, thank you.” Daphne replied sassily, rolling her eyes before chuckling. “Now what do you want?” 

“We’re going to play two truths and a lie.” Polly announced, leaning against the couch. “D’you wanna join?”

- - - - -

Daphne played two truths and a lie. 

The kids were positioned in a circle, and Kaela had placed Bill in the middle because Izaiah had joked it would be like they were sacrificing him to the demons or something. 

Piper’s dog sat behind Daphne, and she stroked through the animal’s drying fur (Penny also went outside) as she played. They’d already gone through the circle a couple or so times- Daphne had lost track. Usually the group would have gotten bored by the third time around, but with pretty much nothing else to do, they pushed forward like ‘the strong soldiers’ they were (hey, that’s what Fries told them when they passed through the living room thirty minutes ago).

“Oh, is it my turn?” Lochlan asked when Lael finally finished.

“Yeah, go.” Isaiah nodded. 

“Okay, okay!” Lochlan went silent for a second, going into thinking mode about what he could say. “Uh, I have red hair.. my eyes are blue, and a huge building once fell on top of me, almost killing me!”

Everybody stared at him. 

Parker laughed. “Yeah, Lochlan. Nice try but, uh you’re gonna have to do better than that.” He scoffed. 

Everyone stared at HIM now. 

“Parker, his eyes are green .” Claire deadpanned. 

The geography nerd blinked, then stared at Lochlan for a good couple of seconds before his expression completely dropped. 

“A building WHAT?! -” 

“Yo kids, dinner is ready.” Macy butted in, which totally did not cause everyone to scream out bloody murder at the new voice. 

“Ah! It’s a monster!” Izaiah cried, throwing his hands in front of his face. 

“No, no guys. It’s Macy.” Polly said once she regained her composure. 

“Same thing!” Izaiah rolled his eyes. 

“ Damn , okay.” Macy blinked before clearing her throat. “As I said, dinner’s ready, so I recommend moving your little asses to get the food before I eat it all.” And like that, she walked away. 

Everyone else took that as a sign to start moving, too. Parker didn’t move his eyes away from Lochlan, still staring at him with the same horrified expression. Polly stood up and brushed the nonexistent dirt off her pants and gestured towards Daphne, Claire and Kaela to go with her, the rest of the group following suit. 

“Uh, you okay Parker?” Isaiah chuckled awkwardly as he got up.

“Get back to work!” Izaiah then exclaimed, gesturing for Parker to stand the fuck up and follow the rest of the group to have dinner. His little comment striked a little evil giggle from Tega, who then waltzed over towards the dining room with everyone else. 

Daphne gave Penny a little pat on the head before running off with everyone, too. 

- - - - -

“I don’t eat Asian food.” Xavier said, declining the bowl of noodles being offered their way. “Not my thing.” 

“Eat the damn food, beta.” Harris urged. 

“Yeah, do you wanna starve?! Take it!” Piper added, pushing the bowl into Xavier’s hands, only for it to be refused for the twentieth time already.

Daphne gobbled down some of the noodles Piper and Harris had cooked up, careful not to spill it all over herself again . Her sweater was still wet from that! She watched the cooks argue with Xavier about food preferences and whatnot, and how they should still eat the food, even if they weren’t fond of it. 

“No thanks.” Xavier repeated. “Just give it to Freiah or something. They aren’t eating much.” They said, pointing towards the fanfic writer. 

“Huh- oh, no. I-I’m okay.” They quickly replied, holding their hands up in surrender. “I don’t eat much anyways.” 

“Couldn’t be me! I eat everything.” Daphne grinned, before shoving more noodles into her mouth (and almost choking but shhh).

Xavier side-eyed her. “Korben?” 

That made Tolu almost spit out her food. 

“Ew!” Tega yelped, scooting away from the Splatoon player, scowling at her in disgust. “Watch that mouth! You could have gotten me wet! Absolutely disgusting !” 

“Womp womp.” Elaina shrugged and held one noodle to her mouth and ate it as painfully slow as possible.

“Uh, if Xavier doesn’t want to eat any of the noodles,” James started, joining the conversation. “I can have ti- theirs, and they could just eat like a granola bar or something.” He suggested. Piper and Harris looked at each other, as if communicating telepathically before glancing back at Xavier judgmentally and sighing. 

“Fine! But only because I’m too tired of his shit to fight about it anymore.” Piper groaned, leaning back and giving up. 

The rain seemed to have had an effect on the older kids, Daphne noticed. Actually, no, she didn’t notice that, Kaela did, and just whispered to her. Hey, let Daphne think she’s a big brain, okay? 

Anyhoo, the Stardew Valley player started yapping about mimic diets and harvester lengths (HOW LONG THEIR TENDRILS ARE YOU SICK DIRTY PEOPLE). Daphne tried to pay attention, because she thought that this was pretty useful information, but her mind kept wandering elsewhere. 

“Wait, the harvester thingies have tentacles ?” Lael asked, having heard the conversation between Kaela and Daphne. A sinister grin started to form on his face. “ Woah .” 

“Why, what are you thinking about, Lael?” Polly asked. 

“No, no ! I don’t think we wanna know.” Claire butted in, trying not to spit out her noodles. “Don’t answer that question, Lael.” 

“Awwh.” Lael complained, and went back to eating his noodles, but with a sorrowful expression. 

“Who made the child depressed??” Macy questioned, gesturing towards the sulking Lael. “What happened, lil bro?” 

“He’s being horny for meat tentacles.” Izaiah answered for him with a nod. 

“What!?” Fries snapped their head towards Izaiah, then Lael. Izaiah’s comment got everybody’s attention; now they were waiting for an explanation from Lael. 

“NO!” Lael shrieked, suddenly overwhelmed with the pressure of sixteen other eyes on him. “Well, yeah, but- NO !” 

“ ‘Well yeah ’??!!” Tega repeated, side-eying Lael. “What do you mean by ‘well yeah’?! Answer me now !!” 

“Yeah! Wait, no!” Piper cried, Harris trying not to spit out his noodles beside her. “Please don’t. I don’t really want to puke right now!” 

“Huh??” Elaina glanced at everyone, coming back from whatever kind of trance the wall had put her in. She was the only one who didn’t hear Izaiah’s comment; thank god for that.

“You don’t wanna know…” Tolu whispered, shaking her head as she patted her friend’s shoulder.

“ ...HUH??? ” Elaina huh’ed a little louder, staring at Tolu in confusion. Daphne wasn’t sure if she was seeing things, but she’s pretty sure she noticed Harris grip his spoon a little tighter. 

“Bro how did we get so off topic?” Macy laughed. “Like, first we were talking about how Lael was being horny for meat creature tentacles, and then Elaina just started ‘huh-ing’.” She paused to giggle her ass off. 

“HUH?!? ” Elaina huh’ed in confusion, concern and suspicion at the same time with one word before going silent to try and process what the fuck she just heared.

“So we’re all okay with Lael wanting to…” Polly glanced at everyone. “With harvester tentacles?”

“Ew, Lael!” Kaela pressed her hands against her mouth and turned away dramatically. “They’ll like- paralyze you then eat your body or something!”  

“Actually, they’ll inject you with toxins that’ll make you unable to move so you bleed out, and then the tendrils take your body into the earth and melt your skin off.” Xavier said, making sure not to leave out any details. 

“Oh.” Lael blinked. “That sounds..” 

“Fun! I know, right?” Lochlan beamed. Isaiah stared at him in bewilderment for a good while.

“Okay, okay!” Piper declared. “Enough meat talk! We’re gonna eat now!” 

“ Awhh .” Izaiah complained.

But after that, everyone miraculously (omg mlb?!!?!?1) agreed with the blondie and stopped pressing about the topic. Maybe they thought tentacle sex with a dangerous organism wasn’t the best thing to discuss at a dinner table while trying to eat. Then, everyone casually shifted back into their own conversations again, and Daphne listened to Kaela infodump some more, this time on what she remembered about monoliths. 

Everybody ate for a couple while more, the rain outside slowing down slightly. Only slightly, though. At least it was enough that Daphne could actually sort of see what’s outside now. Yipee! 

Fries volunteered Lael up to wash the dishes and help clean up, along with Izaiah. Daphne tried to hold back a snarky comment towards Lael when he got told of his chores. She really didn’t want to join in on their torture. 

A mini game or two of Uno later, and Fries decided it was bedtime, for whatever reason. Daphne, Polly, Claire and Kaela went scouring through some of the clothes Fries and their family had. Did they need them? No, not really- they just wanted to check the stuff out. It’s not like Fries would have let them touch what’s in their closet anyways.

“So..” Isaiah started, everyone sat around in the living room. “How are we gonna sleep?”

“Should we maybe do groups again?” Kaela suggested. “Like how we did at Tolu’s house? I think that worked out pretty okay.” 

“Yeah.. I think the groups were okay.” James agreed. “Same groups?” 

Fries seemed to think about the possibility, gripping their necklace and fiddling with the pendant on it. “Yeah, it could work out. Sure why not.” They concluded, and Daphne heard Lael say a little ‘yes!’ under his breath. Oh how she wanted to strangle him- even when he’s not doing anything. 

“As long as-” Fries started, which emanated groans from most of their male children (Lael, Izaiah, Tega and Parker, not to name names). Fries rolled their eyes. “I didn’t even say anything yet! As long as you aren’t crazy as shit and cause too much trouble.” 

“Fries, you know us better than that.” Tega deadpanned. 

“I do.” Fries replied. “That’s why I said too much trouble. I know you’ll get in trouble- as you always do, but try to limit it, okay? I don’t want that much damage to my house, ‘kay?” 

“You got it.” James gave his parent a thumbs-up, who returned the favour with a smile. 

“But what if I don’t want to?” Harris challenged. 

Fries just stared at him. 

“If you don’t treat Fries’ house with respect, I’ll shove a mimic’s arm down your throat, Harris.” Tolu threatened, glaring daggers at the guy. 

“I- okay..!”  Harris blinked. Probably getting flashbacks from his schizophrenia attack

“Yeah, you better be scared.” Tolu rolled her eyes. 

“ Anywaysss ..” Xavier interrupted, turning to look at Fries. “Same groups?”

Fries nodded. “Yep! Oh, and we need night duty!” They realized. “Who wants to do it?”

“Can me, Isaiah and Parker do it?” Lael immediately begged. “ Pleasee ???” 

Fries sighed and looked down at their kid. “Can you pull up an all-nighter without falling asleep once?”

Lael nodded vigorously. “Yes ma’am- I mean Fries.” 

Fries blinked in ‘what the fuck’ but continued on nonetheless. “Can you do it without disrupting everyone?” 

“Yes!!” Lael answered desperately. 

“At this point, he’s gonna start sobbing on his hands and knees.” Polly snickered to Claire, Kaela and Daphne herself. The thought made her giggle. 

“And you’re gonna tell us immediately if there’s danger?” Fries asked, looking skeptical at their child. 

“Yes, yes. I swear!” Lael replied. “Please!” 

Fres sighed. “Alright, fine. I guess I can let you guys go on night duty.” They said, sounding just as happy about the arrangements as everyone else did. 

“Ughh, why’d you do that??” Piper complained. “Now I gotta hear them talk to each other all night instead of actually patrolling shit!” 

“I know, but I’m tired, so.” Fries yawned, then got ahold of their senses. “Okay, where should we sleep?”

“Maybe one group downstairs because it’ll be safer there, and one group up here in case anything goes wrong.” Xavier suggested. 

Macy shrugged. “I like that. We should do that.” 

“We call dibs downstairs first!!” Xavier announced, and members of the other group groaned in frustration. “Womp womp.” They then snarked back at the same people. 

- - - - - 

Downstairs was pretty okay. 

The place was still kind of a mini mess because of what the kids were doing down here a while ago. Lance’s hockey sticks and other equipment scattered across the floor from when Lael tried the stuff out, and the foosball table was slanted because Parker was chasing the girls, yeah it looked like a bombing site, to put it nicely.

Fries had gotten out extra mattresses and shit down here for the other group members to sleep on. They also took the room next to the corner thing- Fries’ aunt and grandma’s room, they said? Oh well, they had a huge bed. Which immediately got Tolu and Piper to fight over it. 

“No, I want it!” Piper cried. 

“ NO !! I want it too!” Tolu retorted, and the girls glared each other down for a good while. 

“You two can share the bed.” Fries sighed. “It’s big enough for like- four people..ish.” They waved their hand at the thing. “I just wanna sleep right now.” 

Piper glanced at the bed, then at Tolu and smirked. “Wow, we’re sharing a bed, Tolu-”

“If you say another word I’ll slap you.” Tolu deadpanned, then shoved the blonde out of her way. 

Soon enough, the rest of the group got their positions. Kaela upright demanded to sleep on the floor to ‘be a manly man’, and Daphne thought it would be neat to join her, so she did. With enough convincing, Claire and Polly joined them. Xavier shared the bed with Tolu and Piper (that sounds weird out of context don’t take that out of context). Elaina slept in the same room with them, along with Macy (who somehow didn’t get her ass whooped by Tolu when she asked if she could sleep in their group). 

Which left… 

“Fries you have to share a bed with stinky blue hair and pronouns!” Kaela gasped. Fries rubbed their eyes. 

“I couldn’t care any less right now.” They replied, looking even more dead inside than usual. 

“Harris, if you try anything weird with my parent I will send you to Narnia, okay?” Daphne threatened the rugby player, who waved his hands up in defence. 

“Woah there buddy.” He blinked, then glanced back at Fries briefly. “Do we have to-” 

“Yes.” Xavier appeared at the door to the other room. Daphne could tell they were trying not to snicker. 

“Ughh, okay fineee .” Harris rolled his eyes. 

“Why, do you not want to sleep with your honey bun bun?” Kaela teased. 

“Yeah, Fries isn’t that bad- holy!” Daphne stared at their parent, who was actually taking their hair out of the hairstyle it’s usually been in for… forever? 

“What?” Fries blinked. 

“Freiah I don’t think I’ve ever seen you with your hair down before.” Polly remarked. 

Fries frowned. “I’ve taken my hair down before..? Do you guys seriously not-” 

“Oh, sorry I wasn’t paying attention then.” Daphne laughed. “But wow, Fries. Just- wow. You look completely different. Like a whole new person.” 

“Uh- thanks..?” Fries chuckled, combing through their hair before yawning again. “Alright.. We should be going to sleep now.” 

“True.” Kaela agreed, then glanced at Harris and opened her mouth.

“I don’t wanna hear it.” Harris interrupted before she could say anything, then proceeded to mew at her. 

“FUCK YOU.” 

- - - - - 

It was pretty late, and Daphne didn’t need a clock to know. 

Outside was pitch dark- you could barely see anything from the window, leaving the basement in total darkness. 

Daphne got woken up by another nosebleed- they were normal for her, though. It happened a lot, especially if the room was dry or whatever. Luckily, the bleeding wasn’t that heavy, and not much of it got on the floor, which would make it easier to clean up later. 

She didn’t want to bother anyone right now, so she just made her way towards the stairs so she could go to the bathroom upstairs (she has no idea how to work the washroom downstairs). She nearly kicked Kaela in the head when she groaned slightly but quickly stepped over her to avoid waking anyone up. Before leaving the small corner thing they were sleeping in, she shot a glance at Fries and Harris on the bed thing. After glaring at the two for a moment, she left for upstairs. 

Lael, Parker and Isaiah seemed to be somewhere in the living room, Daphne thinks. Eh, she heard faint voices. She wasn’t sure where the other group went to sleep, but she was sure they were up here somewhere, at least.

She went to the bathroom through the weird backdoor thingy near the door leading to the backyard. Fries’ house is just built like that. After turning on the lights and looking in the mirror, Daphne got to see what the mess looked like. Thankfully, it wasn’t a big mess. Just some blood, since, y’know. Nosebleed. 

She got another good look at herself before sighing and opening the mirror cupboard, looking for the ointment and stuff to help her nose to stop bleeding. 

Then she heard a sound. 

At first, she just passed it off as either Bill or Penny just roaming through Fries’ house, y’know how animals are. But then the sound didn’t seem to be coming from there. 

Daphne glanced to her right, not seeing anything other than some of the boy’s clothes (which is just ew ). Then to her left only to be faced with a mimic smiling down at her through the window. 

Chapter Text

Parker sighed. 

Here the group was (the entire group, mind you) at four something in the morning, all squeezed together in the narrow hallway. Why they had to squeeze in there of all places, Parker didn’t know. He stayed at the end of the hallway anyways. 

Apparently Daphne had seen a mimic or something outside of the window. She had shrieked so loud she woke up most of group two, who were chillaxing in Lance’s bedroom prior. (Freiah had deemed their bedroom inaccessible which- why was Harris allowed in then???)

Then, Parker Lael and Isaiah had to check up on her even though they were fully invested in their tea-sharing session about whatever the hell the English kids were up to a week or something before this whole Vita Carnis fiasco. Isaiah went to do just that and was then met with the mimic staring back at him, too. Then one thing led to the next and boom now they were all here. 

Parker groaned. He finally got the chance to spend some alone time, and now it got interrupted? Fuck you Daphne. You ruin everything. 

“So, a mimic was outside?” Freiah asked. They were pretty much the only one in a good mood after being woken up, besides Elaina, of course. She didn’t seem to be that bothered by a lack of sleep. She didn’t even seem to be bothered by a lot of things now that he thought about it; she always zoned out and went along with everything.

“Yeah.” Daphne nodded. “It was just… there. Like, it didn’t do anything! Just stood there!” She said, frantically gesturing at the window more than once. The mimic had left a while ago already, but it was like Daphne was expecting it to just pop back into the window and break into the house with its thin noodle arms. 

“Well, at least it didn’t break in, I guess?” Isaiah shrugged. 

“ That’s the weird part.” Polly muttered, rubbing her eyes. “It didn’t break in. Why didn’t it? It could have easily gone through the window and eaten Daphne… but it didn’t .” She looked at everyone. “I think there’s something more about this.” 

“Ugh, why are we getting so philosophical?” Piper groaned. “I want to go back to sleep.” 

“Piper, I didn't know you knew big words like that. I thought you had the mind capacity of a five year old.” Xavier said snarkily, and before the blonde could argue back, griddied away to the other end of the hallway away from her.

“ Anyways… ” Freiah whistled. “Yeah, that is pretty weird, and we should totally look into it some more.” 

“We should ?” Tega raised an eyebrow. 

“Well, it’s pretty obvious that no one is capable of thinking straight right now.” Freiah said (DESPITE NOT BEING STRAIGHT THEMSELVES HA-), glancing at everyone, noticing how most of them are almost about to fall back to sleep; a good portion already dozing off. “And some of y’all are in a bad mood from being woken up so early, and we can’t really have that right now. We can all discuss this in the morning when we’re all feeling better. Cool?” 

Everyone murmured a response. 

“Okay, I’m going back to sleep.” Tolu grumbled, pushing Piper out of the way so she could get back downstairs. 

“So, we just go back to sleep?” Daphne asked as everyone else started filing out. “Like nothing ever happened?” 

“Fries said we’ll talk about it in the morning.” James yawned. 

“But what if it comes back?!” Daphne inquired, glancing back at the bathroom window for the millionth time. 

“Doritos, stop worrying so much. Nothing will happen.” Xavier mumbled, before walking back down to the basement themself. 

“Hey, Dorito,” Freiah started. “If you’re so worried, how about you stay up, hm?” They suggested, then glanced at Parker, Isaiah and Lael. “I’ll stay up with you, though, if you’d like. So you’re not stuck with these guys.” They teased, flashing a sweet smile. 

“Hey!” Lael shouted. “We’re not that bad.” He rolled his eyes.

Freiah nodded. “You’re right. That isn’t being fair to Isaiah.” They said. 

“What?!” Parker gasped. “Are you saying that we’re-.... Yeah, nevermind.” He sighed, accepting his fate. 

“Should we go back to watching the front window?” Isaiah interrupted with an awkward chuckle. Everyone else was basically back in their rooms now, attempting to go back to sleep. 

“Yeah.” Lael nodded, before following Isaiah into the living room. 

Parker glanced back at Freiah and Daphne, who seemed to be conversing about the mimic ordeal some more. He wondered why Daphne was so worked up about it- She wasn’t even hurt! All she did was lose a staring contest against a meat stick that would have won anyway.

With a sigh, he turned his back on the two, and went off to find Lael and Isaiah, a plan on getting out of this godforsaken place running through his mind. 

- - - - - 

Okay, now it’s morning. 

Harris and Piper (who were in a much better mood now) had made scrambled eggs for the group, and Parker wondered where the hell they got so many damn eggs. Well, it’s not like he really cared, anyway. The eggs were so good that you could have told him that a mimic had laid them itself and he still would have gobbled them up immediately. 

“Oh yeah, when are we gonna discuss the mimic jumpscare from last night?” Tega asked, as he cautiously ate breakfast. Parker guessed he was suspicious of where they got so many eggs.

“Yeah, it was weird.” Lochlan nodded. 

“Okay, so first off, we need to figure out reasons why it didn’t just break in.” Xavier started, clasping their hands together and staring at the air in front of them, which caused Tolu to groan in annoyance. Xavier rightfully ignored her. “Any thoughts? I need more time to think.”

“Maybe… moon phases?” Kaela recommended. 

Xavier scoffed. “That’s stupid, anything else?” 

“Hey, hey. She might be on something.” Claire muttered. 

“Yeah, Xavier .” Tolu spat, glaring at the SCP enthusiast. She was clearly still not in a good mood, and decided to make it everybody’s problem just because she could.

“Like, what if the moon phases had an effect on the mimics? Like- maybe with how much light they shine onto the earth or something?” Kaela shrugged. “I don’t know.” 

“Oh, so like werewolves?” Macy suggested. 

“The mimics are furries?!” Izaiah gasped, horrified by the idea. 

“Dude, shut up.” Piper rolled her eyes. “Uh, Freiah. What was the moon phase last night?” 

Freiah perked up, and raised an eyebrow. “Why are you asking me ..?” 

“Because you watch Solarballs-” Piper started, and Tolu and James seemed about to pounce on her ass. “-and your favourite character is the moon- or, Luna? You said?” Tolu and James both ‘oh’ed’ at the end. 

“Fries, your favourite character is Luna?” James asked. “That’s cool.” 

“Thanks!” Freiah smiled. “And, awh , Piper? You remembered?” They asked, glancing at the blonde, and they stared at each other for a time too long to have a heterosexual explanation for. 

“Get to the point.” Tega rolled his eyes. 

Freiah laughed awkwardly before thinking back. “Well, I couldn’t see it well, but I think it was- uh..” They stammered, tapping their finger on the table as they thought back. “Y’know what? I’ll draw it out, hold on.” Then just like that, they scooted off the table and went to find something to draw with, as they already had a mini sketching pad in their pocket- typical Freiah shit. 

“And just to let you know that if this whole moon cycle thing isn’t true- which it isn’t, by the way- I can proudly say we’ve done all of this for nothing.” Xavier mentioned with a sigh, picking at their scrambled eggs. 

“Like we’ve done anything more than discuss it.” Tolu deadpanned.

Before Xavier could snap back a smartass response he was interupted. “Eat those eggs, boy!” Harris scolded, pointing at the other accusingly. Xavier shrieked back at him in pterodactyl language.

“Okay, okay! I have it down.” Freiah interrupted, slamming a piece of paper in front of Kaela, a drawing of a moon, with a darkened small crescent on the right hand side. Ugh, if only people in this house knew what the actual phases were called. 

Kaela squinted, then tilted her head to the side. “Hm… that’s strange.” She muttered. 

“Why, lemme see.” Macy said, squeezing in to look. “Oh, were you expecting like, a new moon- if that’s what it’s called? Like, when it’s all dark? I don’t know.” She shrugged. 

The Hatsune Miku worshipper nodded. “Yeah. My theory was that the darker the moon was- or less visible it is, I guess, the more peaceful the mimics would be, because… you know. That’s usually how it is.” 

“Yeah, but now it’s like, reverse werewolves.” Harris commented, shoving more eggs into his mouth. 

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.” Macy agreed. “I was like, ‘are we doing the opposite of the movies or what?’” 

“So, the more the moon is visible, the less hostile the mimics are?” James asked. “Huh, that’s actually pretty interesting.” 

“And stupid.” Xavier butted in, rolling their eyes. “This is all gonna be false, I know it.”

“Shut up, Beta!” Harris retorted. 

“Hey, it wouldn’t hurt to try, right?” Macy said. “I mean, if it isn’t true, then it isn’t, but we just need answers to why the mimic didn’t do anything violent that night.” 

“Maybe it was just studying Daphne’s routine?” Isaiah suggested. “Because mimics do that.” 

“...That’s pretty smart, actually.” Macy blinked. “Good job, child. Hey, Freiah. That’s another one of your kids you did a good job at raising. Good job.” 

“I-uh. Okay.” Freiah chuckled awkwardly. 

“Hey! What about the rest of us?” Tega dramatically gestured to himself and the rest of the kids. 

“Terrible.” Piper deadpanned. She looked around the table. “Okay, I can see we’re all finished, who wants to wash dishes?” 

- - - - - 

Parker didn’t have to wash dishes, thank god for that. He was also getting a little tired from the conversation earlier. It was helpful, yes, but he was about ready to start chatting with Lael right next to him. His brain can’t keep up with this! 

Now, the group was outside- except for the two who had to wash dishes. Apparently they were going to be making the house more tactical, like in the movies, which, when you first think about it, sounds fun! And then you have to lift stuff, measure stuff, break stuff in a very specific way, and it isn’t that fun anymore. 

Well, Parker did okay at woodworking- that’s what he thought, anyway. It wasn’t that terrible and actually pretty fun at times, if he was being honest. But they were literally measuring stuff. He didn’t like measuring stuff.

“So, we’re gonna move that part of the fence over to… here.” Piper instructed, gesturing to the fence that separated Freiah’s house to their neighbours, then over to the wide, open driveway.

Freiah had informed the group that said neighbours had a mini gardening system with food already growing in their backyard that they could use. Luckily, the neighbours were not there at the moment, so they didn’t need to ask for permission. Or maybe they were there- just… dead, or something. 

“And… how are we going to do that?” Izaiah asked, side eyeing Piper. 

“... Cut it?” She sighed. “I don’t fucking know, child!” 

“How are we going to detach it from the ground?” Polly asked, pointing at the wood. 

Piper groaned, exasperated and confused. “I don’t- Freiah! You live here, do you remember how this thing was built? That might help us out.” She snapped her head over to the flutie patootie expectantly. 

“Uh..” Freiah started, biting their lips. “Hold on, let me think.” They frowned. 

Piper rolled her eyes. “Alright! Anyone else have any ideas?” 

“We could just- rip it out.” Elaina suggested. “Like, we all just pull it at the same time.” 

“We could throw a boulder at it so it falls down, and then we can just pick it up from there!” Lochlan grinned manically. 

“No!” Polly said. “We need the fence intact so it can actually work if we use it as some sort of defense shield thing !”  

“Guys, I don’t think we actually need to pry it out of the ground.” Freiah interrupted, walking towards the fence. “It wasn’t built like that, if I remember. They attached it to these other wood plank things.” They ran their hand across the wooden surface. “The only thing that’s in the ground are the support beams here.” 

“So we just need to detach it from the other wood, then?” Harris said. 

“Yeah, basically.” Freiah shrugged.

“Well, there you go!” Piper celebrated. “How are we going to do that?” 

“Observe.” Elaina confidently strutted over towards the fence like a cartoon character, causing mass giggling behind her emanating from the horde of under-matured children. She paused right in front of it, inspecting how the whole thing stayed up and the way it was constructed. She took her hands and held tight onto one of the planks and- 

“Yeah, no way you’re gonna do that on your own.” Macy said, frolicking over to the pink woman and helping her take a hold of the wood and helping her pull. 

“Are you seriously going to just pull on the thing?” Tolu asked, emerging from the house. Parker now remembered it was her and some other dude for washing dishes duty. Who the other dude was, Parker forgot. “Well, good luck with that.”

“Wait, wait. Don’t we have to measure it first?” Harris interrupted. He looked over to the open driveway, the wide view nice to look at but also not when you remember that anything could just emerge from the corner. “So it fits?” 

“Wanna know what else can fit?” Izaiah asked, pressing his hands together like a disney villain and grinning like a madman. 

“Woah!!” Parker and Lael said at the same time. 

“Izaiah, no.” Piper scolded, despite holding back giggles herself. 

“We should measure it, though.” Freiah said. “I’ll go get the measuring tape.” They announced, before skedaddling over back inside to find it. 

“Do you think we’ll actually be able to move the fence over there?” Lael whispered over to Parker. 

“Do you think we’ll actually survive this apocalypse?” Parker replied, giving Lael a dead look. “Ugh- I wonder why the cops or like- Winnipeg haven’t come to rescue us or anything.”

“Maybe they don’t know we’re still here..?” Lael suggested, and Parker scoffed. 

“Yeah, totally.” He rolled his eyes. 

“Well, we might as well survive here while we still can.” Lael replied, putting his hands on his hips. “It’s kind of fun, at times, y’know?”

Parker thought about it for a minute before sighing. “Yeah, I guess..” He admitted.

“You’re just mad that you don’t have any geography books with you right now.” Lael grinned. 

“Of course I’m mad about that!” Parker huffed. “What am I supposed to hold at night, now?!”

“You can hold Lael.” Polly smirked, randomly joining the conversation. 

“ WHAT?!?!?!?!?! ” Lael screamed, and then he started yelling all types of nonsense at Polly for saying that. Parker just stood behind him, his jaw dropped to the ground. 

“Can you guys shut up for a second?!” Piper yelled at them. Parker’s head snapped in her direction to see her, Harris, Tolu, Macy, Elaina and Freiah measuring the length of the driveway. “We need to sort this out!” She said. 

“Oh, I can help out, if you’d like.” James volunteered, stepping towards the five. 

“Same!” Lochlan perked up. 

“Do you wanna help?” Lael whispered over to Parker, who shrugged. 

“Eh, not really.” He said. “I just wanna watch.” 

“Woah!” Lael blinked. “You don’t want to help them?” 

“Well, I don’t see you saying you wanna help!” Parker retorted with an eye roll. 

“Okay, you’re right.” Lael sighed. 

Together, the two boys watched Harris roll out the measuring tape across the driveway from the end of Freiah’s house to the fence of their neighbour’s. They said numbers that Parker didn’t catch, and walked over to the other side of the fence, trying to measure that now. 

Parker probably zoned out… Did zone out during most of it, since a lot of it was boring measuring stuff. He just wanted to get to the part where they broke stuff down! Luckily, that time caught up soon enough, because Elaina was now finding ways to get the fence out of its place. 

“Wait- how are we going to make it stand up, though?” Lochlan asked. “What if it falls down?” 

“We use gorilla tape.” Harris answered confidently. “You have gorilla tape, right, Freiah?”

Freiah perked up at the sound of their name. They thought about it. “Uhh.. I don’t think so?”

“Guess we’ll just have to raid Walmart then.” Macy shrugged.  

“How are we supposed to make it stand right now?” Tolu deadpanned, looking at the fence. “It’s literally just going to fall right over.” 

“We can just put something behind it for now.” Lochlan offered. “Then we can find something later.”

“That’s actually a good idea, Lochlan.” James commented. 

“Thank you!” Lochlan replied. 

“Elaina- hold on!” Macy shouted, and Parker flipped his head in the tall one’s direction. She was- for some reason, trying to detach a part of the fence by herself. 

The fake ginger ran up to her and placed her hands on the wood next to Elaina. “We’re not letting you lift this alone, right guys?” And she looked over to the rest of the group. 

“Yeah, c’mon.” Freiah nodded, gesturing for their kids to help out, too. 

“I can do it! I'm a manly man!!!!” Kaela shouted (and Parker just remembered she existed), running to join Elaina to pry the fence apart. 

“Wait- are we all helping?” Lael asked, perplexed. 

“Yes, now move your asses!” Piper answered, strutting over to the fence. 

“Ugh, but I don’t wanna…” Lael huffed. 

Parker placed a reassuring hand on his companion’s shoulder. “Hey, maybe it won’t be that bad, right?”

- - - - -

“That was terrible!!” Parker cried, throwing his back on the outside wall of Freiah’s neighbour’s house and sinking down to the ground. 

His arms ached like hell from removing that part of the fence over. They had to get extra tools and gadgets to help get the fence up and moving. Then came the moving of the fence part- which was just as- if not even more exhausting. 

“It wasn’t that bad.” Polly commented. 

“Polly shut up.” Parker groaned in response, shoving his face in his hands. 

Daphne gasped. “Parker, how dare you!” 

“Hey, she started it!” Lael responded with a huff, sitting down besides Parker. 

“Alright, that’s enough.” Freiah barged in, breaking up the argument. “You guys can go rest or whatever you want. Just don’t break anything too badly.” 

With that, Lael stood up and stretched, despite being on the ground for less than a minute. “Hey, Parker, Isaiah. Do you wanna see how Xavier is doing with the meat-snake?” He asked. 

“Oh, that’s where Xavier went?” Parker blinked. “I just assumed they were still inside.” 

“No, Xavier went to try and tame the meat-snake in the back, remember? The one we found yesterday?” Lochlan said. “I don’t know how they’re going to do that, exactly, but they’re doing that.” 

“Oh! We should check that out, then.” Polly suggested. “I wanna see if they tamed it yet.” 

“Oh my gosh- yeah!!” Daphne grinned. “Let’s go!” 

Before Parker knew it, he was being dragged along by Lael against his will to do whatever Blond Boys™ do. 

Chapter Text

I stared down at the amount of dead squirrels I had collected for this thing that were piled up near the fence (don’t ask where I got them). I remember watching a video on how to train meatsnakes a while back, but it got removed when too many karens reported it, so I put some thought and memory into it and came up with the next best thing: dead squirrels. 

I glanced back at the meatsnake in front of me, who seemed to be curious about my intentions. It was right there, and I was about to tame the thing! I was going to tame a meatsnake!! Take that Josh! We all know your ass couldn’t tame one of these if you tried. 

Enough with thinking- time to feed this thing! I picked up a nearby corpse before cringing at the smell; I immediately held my nose. I forgot dead bodies were disgusting sometimes. I sucked it up then inched closer to the meatsnake, careful not to upset it in any way. 

“Do you want it?” I cooed, not entirely sure if I should look it in the eyes or not. I did anyway, since that is what people usually do when taming animals, with several exceptions. I hoped meatsnakes weren’t a part of that exception.

Now standing directly in front of the creature, I cautiously held out the dead squirrel, backing up just a little bit more for safety. I placed the food in front of the creature for it to consume and watched it hesitate to eat it. I waited a good second or so before it flicked its tongue to test the body, then stood as it swallowed it whole. 

“Heh… okay, I guess?” I chuckled to myself, reaching over to get more dead squirrels. Placing them in front of the meatsnake, I began to ponder a name for this fellow, and if it’ll stay here for long or not. 

Dropping a fourth squirrel in front of him, I sighed. “What are we going to do with you, you little stinker.” I muttered, watching it swallow the fourth squirrel whole. This time, I politely kicked a fifth in its direction, and it gobbled it up immediately. 

A chuckle escaped my mouth. “Are we playing soccer now?” I teased, bringing another corpse close with my boot. I was about to kick it at full force, but I decided that I probably shouldn’t do that if I wanted to keep my life, so another friendly kick it was.

“Fredrik.” I said, testing out names now. Ugh, I wished Elaina, James, Izaiah or Lochlan were here to help me decide on names! Too bad they were Donald Trumping on the other side of the fence. 

I shook my head. Fredrik was a hard no for a meatsnake. “...Patrick? Nope. Uhhh… Mario!- No, no.” I groaned, kicking another squirrel corpse. “How about.. Corio’s anus?” I held back a laugh. “No, no. You don’t deserve being named after a white man.” I giggled.

Another kick of a squirrel and it hit me. “Barry.” I decided. “Barry. Or- no. Aarcus Xardalis. Also known as SCP-0396178.” I  grinned in pride. This proves how great I am at this naming thing! Gee I’m awesome. 

I watched Aarcus swallow the squirrel whole again, and now he waited patiently for another corpse to consume. I glanced back at the stack and counted about four more squirrels left for the taking and sighed. I rolled the closest one towards me with my boot, noticing how its body seemed to have crawl embedded in its drying fur. Despite that, I kicked it over towards Aarcus. I’ll bring that up later during lunch.

“Who’s a good meatsnake?” I grinned as Aarcus consumed the squirrel again. He made some sort of groaning noise that I just took as an ‘I am!’ and I pushed another squirrel's body towards him. 

We went on like this for a good second until I had run out of squirrels to feed. Luckily, Aarcus didn’t seem that bothered, as he didn’t seem to make any noise or action that suggested he wanted more. Out of ideas, I just stood awkwardly in front of him, hands on my hips like some mom (I’m not Freiah, what the fuck). 

I decided that I had somewhat domesticated him a good amount already, since I’ve fed him a good chunk of meatsnakes already. Maybe I should… pet him? I’m pretty sure that’s part of the training process. You have to prove to the animal that you’re safe, or something. 

I took in a breath, and walked closer. I tried to get a hold of myself, I had already tamed this thing well enough, and they were supposed to be easily tamed anyway. Still, I still felt a small pit form in my stomach as I made my way closer. 

Once about a good 3 feet away from Aarcus, I hesitantly took out my hand in front of me, wondering where to place it. Suddenly, Aarcus’ tongue shot out, and I shrieked a little bit, worried he was going to engulf me whole. But meatsnakes don’t eat living things, they can’t, actually. I would make a joke about me actually being dead inside (HA, GOTTEM) but I suddenly felt something nip at my hand. 

I looked down (and realized that I was squeezing my eyes shut in the first place) and found Aarcus licking my hand. A smile spread on my face. It was licking me! How delightful. The feeling of its tongue against my skin sort of tickled a bit. I could feel the bumps of Aarcus’ tongue and it sent a mixture of awe and disgust through me. 

Remembering back, I could recall the instructional videos and hearing about it from the news and whatnot that domesticated meatsnakes like to lick their owners skin, since something about skin being made of dead cells? But they also mentioned to not let them do this too much because they could- 

“Ow- fuck!” I pulled away from Aarcus’ tongue, and pulled my hand close. “Bad meatsnake! What the hell..” I squinted at the wound. Aarcus had managed to lick off some of my skin with his tongue, somehow?! Jesus, that hurts like hell! I’d prefer getting jumped by a mimic. 

I clenched my other hand, staring at the open wound that now made itself known. It gave me the vibe of getting skin burnt, and, not going to lie, it kind of felt that way, too. It stinged each time I came close in contact with it; yet despite that, I kept pinching the wound, testing it. 

Through gritted teeth I glanced back at Aarcus. I wasn’t an expert on reading meatsnake body language, but the poor thing seemed to feel a bit guilty for me. A small, sappy smile melted onto my face. 

“Don’t worry, Aarcus. It was an accident.” I reassured, but the meatsnake did not seem reassured. He made a noise similar to a dog whine and I felt my heart tug. 

“It’s okay, little guy.” I hummed, bringing my non-damaged hand to give Aarcus a little head pat. “I’ll heal up. I've already been through worse shit anyway.” I gestured to the scar on my left eye. It stopped bothering me after a while, but I was still aware of its existence. Every day, every second. It was cool at times, uncomfortable at others.

The wound on my hand from when Aarcus managed to lick off some of my skin still burned, but I could feel the pain ease a little bit, at least. I checked the wound again, blood and tissue could be seen from where he licked the skin off. Ew- ‘licked the skin off’ sounded disgusting. The wound still burned like hell, but at least I could bear it a bit more now. 

Aarcus looked up at me with uncertainty, and I couldn’t blame him for being so. I could feel his eyes behind the skull he wore, and it made me feel even worse. How am I sympathizing with a meatsnake already? I’m not even sure if I fully tamed him yet! 

Suddenly, I heard running footsteps on the other side of the fence. I could tell the noise startled Aarcus a bit, so I patted his head again to reassure him that nothing bad was going to happen- which was a terrible thing to think, because when Lael pushed open the door, I knew shit was going to go down. 

- - - - - 

“Woah!” Lael gasped upon entry. I rolled my eyes. “Yes, Lael. Very ‘woah’, can you leave now?” I deadpanned. Once I noticed a couple more kids entering, I felt myself groan. 

“No! We just got here!” Lael complained, then went to stand beside me. “Did you tame it yet?” 

I sighed. “I’m not sure.” I admitted. “He seems okay, though. Not a ton of violence or anything.” I said ‘not a ton’, because my hand wound still hurt. “I think I tamed him enough, if I didn’t fully tame him already.”

“That’s cool!” Doritos beamed, checking out the meatsnake. “So… is it friendly now?” 

I thought about it for a moment. Aarcus was pretty friendly, I guess. A lot friendlier than the mimics, that’s for sure. “Yeah.” I shrugged. 

“Neat!” Parker exclaimed. “Can we ride him?” 

Beside me, Lael whistled and giggled, so did Isaiah (who now stood awkwardly next to Parker), Dorito, Polly and Kaela (whom I just noticed was there). “NOT LIKE THAT?!?!?!” Parker quickly defended himself. “Geez, you guys…” He grumbled. 

Not going to lie, I had to stifle a giggle as well, but as his words sunk in, I snapped my head towards Parker. “No.” I deadpanned. 

“No, what?” The boy replied obliviously and I facepalmed. 

“No, you’re not going to ride Aarcus!” I said. “Both literally and sexually!” I heard Lael burst out laughing before I saw it. The kid was literally forgetting how to breathe each time he did that. I could hear Doritos and her gang giggling, and also noticed how Isaiah had to keep himself from grinning. 

“Wait, Xavier.” Polly perked up after Lael regained his breath. “What did you say his name was?” She asked. 

“Aarcus Xardalis.” I answered confidently, only to be met with deadpanned and confused expressions. 

“Marcus Sa- huh ??” Lael blinked, and I groaned. 

“It's Aarcus Xandalis." I rolled my eyes. "His middle name is uh… Barry.” I remembered, and everyone nodded in return. 

“That’ll be easier to remember, no offence.” Isaiah smiled. 

“Yeah, but it isn’t his real name..” I grumbled, but the kids were already moving on.

“Can we try riding Barry?” Lael asked me, and I glared at him. “In the non-sexual way, of course! I’m not weird like Parker is!” He quickly assured me, as if that’ll do anything. I could feel how offended Parker was- even if I was in the middle of Scotland, I would still feel his bewilderment. 

“Lael, the answer’s already no.” Polly giggled, and I felt both relieved and pissed that she told him off, but still interrupted me. I sighed. 

“No one is riding Aarcus! That’s final!” I announced, glaring at each kid. Except for Isaiah, he’s alright. “No, go and play- or something.” I muttered. 

“Play what, exactly?” Isaiah asked. 

“I don’t know!” I blinked. “Anything that’ll keep you away!” 

“Can we pet him?” Parker asked obnoxiously, aggressively pointing at Aarcus as if we wouldn’t know what he’s talking about. “Pleaseeee???” 

I deadpanned and stared at him. “No.” 

“Why not?” Kaela inquired. “I’m pretty sure you can pet meatsnakes.” 

“Because I don’t want you too.” I answered simply. 

“Damn.” Doritos laughed.

“Pretty please????” Lael begged me, clasping his hands together and shaking them furiously. I stared at him in ‘what the fuck.’

“Yeah! I wanna touch one!” Polly grinned. 

“Have you never touched the one at Co-op?” Kaela asked. “The employees say you can, and like, everyone gives him a little pat when passing by.” 

“Yeah, but my mom always tells me not to because she thinks they have diseases or something.” Polly shrugged. 

“But meatsnakes are immune to diseases.” I frowned. I already learned that in elementary school (more specifically on the internet) yet a thirty to forty year old mom didn’t?

“They are?” Lael asked, and everyone stared at him in disbelief. “What?!?? I forgot!” He grumbled. 

“So can we touch him?” Parker beamed. 

“Yeah, please?” Doritos asked too. 

I stared at all of them, unsure if I should or shouldn’t. I would have said a big fat ‘no’ immediately and scream at them to fuck off, but the more I thought about it, these kids would have kept bothering me if I did that. And as much as I didn’t want to let them, if I didn’t let these insolent children touch Aarcus, they would keep annoying me, and I didn’t want them to do that.  

“Fine.” I grumbled. “But make it quick!” 

The kids’ faces lit up after I said that, and all rushed to Aarcus’ side. They all bickered about who should get to pet him first and I rolled my eyes. 

“Take turns or something!” I yelled at them. “And you’re making Aarcus upset.” I informed, noticing how nervous the meatsnake was getting, as he was shaking a bit.

The six (we’re one of a kind, no category????!!?) stopped arguing and all looked at Aarcus. They turned to each other and seemed apologetic, on Aarcus’ behalf, atleast. Good. They should be. 

I glared at them one more time, and then they all seemed to attempt to ‘take turns’ in order to keep Aarcus comfortable. I told them to stop crowding around him unless they wanted to get their skin licked off (I knew Aarcus wouldn’t do that, but I just wanted them to give him space and scare them a little), and Lael shrieked at the thought of it (which means I did do that). So now he didn’t want a turn to ‘pet’ him, which I was relieved about, not going to lie. 

I can’t even remember if everyone got a turn to give Aarcus a little pat, because someone came out the backdoor. 

“Guys?” I saw Claire peek out, and Kaela jumped at the sight of her. 

“Claire!!!!!!!!” The anime fan squealed, running up to the other girl and celebrating- or something. 

“What the fuck.” I blinked. 

“Uh, so Piper and Harris want everyone in the house.” Claire said after Kaela calmed down. “They say it’s important.” 

“Are we eating?” Lael asked. 

“No, I don’t think so…” Polly muttered. “‘Cause why would they say it’s important if we’re just eating?”

“Because eating is important.” Parker rolled his eyes. “Now, c’mon.” He started out the door, before pausing and yanking Lael’s arm for him to come with him, which made him cry out on instinct. Then he shouted ‘help me!’ to Isaiah, who had to restrain himself from giggling. Good thing they were leaving.

The other girls chatted about what Piper and Harris meant by ‘something important’, since Claire wasn’t given enough detail as it is. Eventually they stopped and started making their way out. 

“Are you coming, Xavier?” Polly asked before she left through the door.

“Yeah, hold on.” I muttered, and Polly nodded in return then exited. I glanced at Aarcus for a moment, the wound he gave me burning a bit, reminding me of its existence. I rested my healthy hand on his head. “I’ll be back, Aarcus.” I whispered, before skedaddling to catch up with the others. 

- - - - -

“So what is it?” Tolu deadpanned. 

Everyone was seated around the dinner table- well not all seated. Some people had to stand up because of a lack of chairs since there were so many people. Usually some people sit on the couch or on the floor when we have meals because it’s crowded at the table and just plain comfier that way, but Piper and Harris insisted we all sit at the table itself. 

The chair at the front most top spot at the table was replaced by the cooks  themselves, who were standing as if they were business CEOs during a huge board meeting. I half expected them to pull out a diagram and explain why sales were low and how it was all our fault. 

I got to call dibs on the seat at the far end of the table, thankfully. I totally didn’t have to push people out of the way for it- what???? Elaina was on my right, crouched down. Somehow, even if she was crouched, she managed to be taller than Freiah’s younger brother- and he was in third grade! I wish he was here so I could bully him. 

Harris sighed like some disappointed father, and pressed his clasped hands to his forehead. When no one noticed, he did it again but louder.

“Harris what the fuck are you doing.” Izaiah asked. 

“Shut up beta!!!!” Harris barked back, before doing it once again, even louder.

“Harris just-” Piper groaned, before speaking. “We have a problem.” She announced, turning to Harris and having yet another telepathic conversation or something. 

“We have always had ‘a problem’ since this mimic thing started.” Tega replied, rolling his eyes. 

“...Well, yeah. But shut up!” Piper yelled. 

“Just tell us what it is, blondie!” Tolu snapped, which caused Piper and Harris to glance at each other again, this time in a ‘did she mean you or me.’ 

“Well, it’s about food…” Harris started slowly, and everyone went quiet. 

“Did a mimic eat all of it?!” Lael cried. 

“Yeah- wait what ?” Piper blinked. “No- well maybe? I don’t know, we just ran out.” She shrugged. “We’re not entirely sure how yet, but-” 

“ WHAT?!!?!?” Everyone screamed in unison. 

“Blondie, please tell me this isn’t true.” Tolu uttered under her breath, shaking her head and smiling to herself, like she was trying to convince herself this was just some sick joke. 

Harris and Piper nervously looked at each other for what may be the sixty ninth time this whole ‘meeting’ thing. Seriously- they’re either plotting something against us, or madly in love, and I hope to god it’s the first option. 

“It’s true.” Harris sighed, and then cleared his throat. 

“We’re out of food.” 

Chapter Text

Piper knew the news was bad to begin with, so she couldn’t be surprised when the room erupted with voices. 

She sighed and glanced around, since many people were trying to talk to her and Harris beside her. Although, it quickly formatted into just her when Harris only replied by mewing at every question fired at him. Piper wished she was that confident sometimes, but she wanted to be the more responsible one for a change, so she rolled her eyes at her fellow cook and attempted to answer everything that was being asked of her. 

“Guys, guys. Calm down!” Freiah attempted to persuade everyone into silencing the fuck up, but they weren’t built for yelling at people. Piper knew that. 

“SHUT UP!!!!!!” Daphne swiftly screamed at everyone as soon as she noticed her parent figure was struggling. 

Lael screamed back at her (typical Lael shenanigans), but before the two could start screeching at each other like the pair of wild rabid animals they were, Piper quickly butted in herself. 

“We aren’t going to solve this problem if we just yell at each other!” She said, looking at everyone with disappointment (including Harris, for his previous mewing). “First off, we need to figure out how we’re going to be getting more food.” 

“Wait- shouldn’t we try to figure out why the food’s gone first?” Lael asked. “I’d like to know who’s responsible for our food running out.” He made a fist and punched his other hand's palm repeatedly. You know, like how the bullies in old movies do it before they beat the shit out of the main protagonist. 

“Woah there, partner.” Kaela blinked, gesturing at the shorter Asian to keep that to himself. “And, I don’t really think it really matters that much.” 

“I mean, we only need the food, so what does it matter if someone took it, we just need more food.” She said, 

“I don’t care.” Lael huffed. “I want answers.” 

“Wait, there’s no more food?” Parker asked, blinking at the deadpanned expressions around him. 

“...We’ve been talking about that for like, five minutes.” Claire stared at him, contemplating if she should laugh at or slap him right now. 

 “Oh... Whoops.” Parker shrugged, unfazed. “I think that might’ve been me, guys. Sorry.” He chuckled, rubbing the back of his head.

Piper felt her jaw drop, and she was sure everyone else did too. 

“Please say sike right now.” Harris shook his head, his eyes locking onto Parker’s. 

“Parker, no way you finished all the food.” Xavier deadpanned. “There was so much!! I thought Izaiah would have been the one who ate it all!” 

“Wow, thanks Xavier.” Izaiah blinked. 

“I was hungry and sad, okay!!” Parker defended himself, waving his arms about. “What am I supposed to do without my beautiful geography books?!” 

“You ate all our food because you were missing your geography books?” Polly didn’t even seem surprised as she said this. Piper could tell in her eyes that this was something she was used to. She felt bad the girl had to go through that with these morons everyday during school before this. 

“Hey, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, alright.” Harris shrugged, putting his hands up in fake surrender. “But now’s not the greatest time, buddy.” He turned to Parker. “Everyone, congratulate Parker for being the reason we all die in four days.” He said, then started clapping, and soon, the whole group was cheering for their demise. 

“Okay, but seriously,” Piper stated once they finished, deciding to be the mature one again. “We need more food unless you guys are up for starvation.” 

“Yay! Starvation!” Lochlan exclaimed, earning a side eye from Tolu and everyone else with a brain (meaning only Tolu, Piper, Polly and Claire). 

“Ignoring that,” Claire cleared her throat. “Are we all just gonna go to Walmart or something, or? How are we going to do this??” 

“I think Walmart is too far.” James commented. Kaela jumped at his voice, and gripped tightly onto Daphne, who seemed to hold back giggles from the action. 

“Yeah.” Piper nodded, glad for some actual thinking. “We need someplace closer; it’s too dangerous to go out that far.”   

“What if we raided other peoples’ houses?” Izaiah suggested. 

Around Piper, the rest of the group nodded and discussed that option. Piper thought about it too. It seemed pretty reasonable, since the houses were empty (well, Piper thought they were empty- if they weren’t, then womp womp) which would make it a lot easier getting inside. 

But of course, there could be a situation where the door’s locked, like what happened in Tolu’s house a week or something ago. Yeah, they could just find a way inside like how they managed to do, but that might take a while. And it might not even matter in the end if all the food they find is expired. 

Piper decided this would be important enough, so she spoke up and told everyone what she thought, including some other things she just noticed while explaining. 

After that, everyone was stuck. Walmart was too far, nearby houses might take too long to get into (and no one really wanted to risk having another Xavier moment), so they might do that at an earlier time- where should they go? 

“How about Fudd’s?” Freiah suggested, their fingers fidgeting with their iconic necklace. “That’s closeby, probably unlocked, and it might have a lot more food that’s less likely to expire since it’s a corner store?” 

“Wait- that sounds pretty good…” Tolu muttered, turning to the ground to brainstorm the thought. 

“A corner store does seem like a good idea.” Isaiah nodded. “I think we should go.” 

With some more discussion and a little bit of debate, they had their plan. They were going to raid Fudd’s. 

- - - - - 

Soon enough, everyone was crowded outside, some standing, some sitting on the grass, and some leaning against the deck. In Piper’s hand was the handle for the wagon that Freiah and Kaela had named, the ‘Billy Showalter Wagon’ (Piper did not know who that was) since Xavier mentioned it would be a good idea to bring it along so they can put all the food inside so it’ll be easier to carry around. 

“So, who’s coming and who isn’t?” Tolu asked, crossing her arms and looking at everyone expectantly. 

“Well, first off, Parker’s staying here.” Freiah announced. Piper felt herself grin. 

“What?! Why???” Parker shrieked. 

“Because you’re the reason we’re in this situation in the first place” Xavier said in their fake Scottish accent. “You ate all the food, we’re not bringing you with us!” 

“Fine…” Parker grumbled. Harris then said something along the lines of ‘womp womp go cry about it’, but Piper stopped listening to him after a while.

“Who else doesn’t wanna come?” Xavier asked. 

“Uh, I can stay.” James said, and Xavier stared at him with hurt in his eyes. “James, why not?” They asked. 

“I just don’t really feel like it.” James replied with a shrug. “Sorry Xavier.” 

“You don’t need to be sorry.” Freiah butted in, giving Xavier a look. “It’s fine if you stay, we can’t bring everyone anyways.” They chuckled. “Anyone else in favour of staying here?” 

Soon enough, they had all decided who was coming, and who wasn’t. Macy and Izaiah agreed to stay back, Lael wanted to stay with Parker so he ‘doesn’t get lonely’, and Tega immediately bailed out once he realized they were going to be doing things. He said that he didn’t want to ‘slave away’ which was- okay?? Kids these days.  

“We have to bring Isaiah and Piper along, since they’re the fast ones.” Xavier said, and Piper had to keep herself from getting too proud. “And also-”

“Wait, Isaiah’s going?” Lael butted in, and Xavier looked like they might start strangling the kid.

“Yes.” They deadpanned. “Anyways, what I was going to say is that-”

“Can I come then?” Lael asked. “Pleaseeeeee??” 

“Fine! Just- stop interrupting me!” Xavier groaned. “Elaina’s coming because she’s strong, I’m coming so I can tell you guys what food we need, Freiah’s coming so we’re not at each other’s throats, and-”

“Wait- what do you mean you’re going to decide what food we need?” Tolu interrupted, frowning at Xavier. “Can’t we just all decide what food we’re bringing??” 

“Yeah, Xavier, you can’t just do that.” Harris added. 

“Look- nobody’s deciding everything.” Freiah sighed, trying to put an end to an argument that wasn’t supposed to happen in the first place. “Can we all just get to Fudd’s without a dumbass argument like this?” 

“Yeah, Xavier.” Tolu snapped, and before Xavier could argue back, Piper cut in. 

“Guys, we’re literally not gonna go anywhere if you two keep arguing like this!” She sighed, then glared at everyone. “Come on, let’s go.” 

- - - - - 

Piper was pissed. Well- she was always pissed, just now she had a reason to be. 

Could Xavier and Tolu just shut up?? If they keep arguing like this, they’re all going to die soon- she even told them that. At least if the group gets killed because they were busy arguing, Piper would have the satisfaction of saying ‘I told you so’ in Hell. ‘Hell?’ You’re probably asking. Well obviously- no way they were getting through the pearly gates. 

Currently, she was at the head of the group, trudging along with the Billy Showalter wagon (okay, the name caught onto her) with Isaiah and Lael close behind. It was supposed to be only her and Isaiah up front since they were the fastest of the bunch, but Lael wanted to chat with his best bud, so here they were. 

Plus, no one paid attention to rules and regulations for this stuff anymore. They sort out who’s leading the group and who’s staying at the back, only for everyone to scatter ‘round anyway. It made Piper roll her eyes. Couldn’t people follow the blueprint they came up with?

“Hey, you good?” Freiah suddenly appeared in the middle of Piper’s brainstorming, and it spooked the hell out of her. 

“Jesus, Freiah! You scared me- I was thinking.” Piper laughed, feeling unable to be too angry at the other for much longer. 

“Heh, sorry.” They replied with an awkward chuckle. “You just seemed upset, so I just wanted to check up on you real quick.” They gave Piper one of their dumb smiles. 

“Oh, thanks for that.” Piper smiled back. “Yeah, it’s just Xavier and Tolu. They keep arguing and I’m this close to killing them both.”

Freiah laughed. “You and me both.” They grinned, before glancing behind them to check up how the rest of the group was doing. “Well, they stopped arguing, thankfully.” They commented. “Tolu’s with Elaina and Harris while Xavier’s talking with Lochlan.” They told Piper, who also checked behind her, careful not to drive the Billy Showalter wagon into anyone’s ankles. 

“Hm. What do you think they’re talking about?” Piper hummed, unsure of how to continue the conversation, as she felt most of the time. 

“...No idea.” Freiah replied. “I think Tolu, Elaina and Harris are talking… something about siblings or video games- from last time I checked.” They thought some more. “I think Xavier and Lochlan are talking about DnD, I can’t tell.” 

“Ooooh, wouldn’t it be cool if we played DnD here?” Piper suggested. The idea of roleplaying with her friends with no distractions (other than the mimics and such, but they aren’t a big problem) made her excited, and she completely forgot about being upset earlier. 

Freiah seemed to like that too, since they lit up at the thought. “Oh my god!! That would be awesome!! Great idea, we should try to do that soon.” They smiled brightly and Piper couldn’t help smiling back. 

They passed by their old elementary school since Freiah lived closeby to it. Piper looked back to the building and got flooded with memories. How they’d all play in the forest  (it wasn’t really a forest, just a bunch of trees shoved together to replicate one) and pretend they were superheroes, how they’d all race to the play structure to determine who’s it for Grounders, and how they’d all rip the crawl out of the ground and pair it with other things within the playground to make ‘food’ and serve to other kids. It was so nostalgic. 

Now, the school had been flooded with even more crawl than from their childhoods. The teachers had gotten professionals to remove a ton of it, but it always grew back, no matter how much chemicals they used. One time it got so out of control, no one was allowed to go to the forest (Piper has a sister who goes there, that’s how she gets her tea). 

Piper had to step over the crawl vines integrated in the sidewalk so she didn’t trip, the Billy Showalter wagon bouncing behind her. 

“We’re all good back there?” Freiah called out behind them as they passed through. 

“Yeah...” Everyone answered. 

“I don’t remember there being so much crawl here…” Isaiah muttered, stepping over some of the meaty vines. “I think we should be more cautious. If there’s that much crawl, there might be a mimic nearby.” 

His words sank into everyone’s heads, and now they were on high alert. The lighthearted silliness of the scouting mission had quickly shifted into uncomfortable caution. If she was honest, Piper sorta wished they didn’t get all serious. Like, she wanted them to take their surroundings seriously, of course, which was why she was so pissed at Tolu and Xavier being ignorant of everything else and only focusing on themselves and their arguing- but she didn’t want everyone to just not talk to each other. That was depressing. 

Then, there was a sudden thud beside her, followed by a whining Lael.

“OW!! What the-” Lael shrieked, trying to get up. “I just tripped on one of the crawl things..” He grumbled. 

“No, really.” Piper deadpanned. 

“Piper!” Freiah scolded with a small grin. “Anyways- Lael, you okay?” They asked, glancing at their kid with concern etched on their face. Piper had to look away. 

“Yeah.” Lael muttered, brushing some dirt off his clothes. “Let’s keep going.” 

Before Piper knew it, they were all standing in front of the corner store, Fudd’s itself.  

“Alright.” Xavier stood in the front of the group. “Sixers stay outside, and we’ll station two of us as guards with you.” 

“Why can’t we go inside?” Polly asked. 

“Cause it’ll be too crowded in there if we all go in.” Tolu said. “Plus, if we’re all in there, we’re probably just going to fight over the stuff we need, so.” She shrugged. 

“Oh.” Xavier blinked. “Yeah, that works too.” 

“Why, did you have other reasons?” Kaela inquired. 

“No...” Xavier whistled. “Moving on, who’s gonna stay out with the sixers?” 

“I can.” Elaina volunteered, reminding everyone of her existence, and that she could speak. Piper was amazed at how quiet she could get nowadays

“But won’t we need you to help carry things, though?” Lochlan questioned. 

“She can do that when we need her to.” Tolu shrugged. “And who’s going to be the other one on watch?” 

After a moment of thought process, Xavier spoke up. “I can.” They announced. “I wanna keep talking with Lochlan, anyway.” 

Everyone, Piper included, was pretty surprised that Xavier declined the chance to enter the corner store with them, as they’re usually always the one who wants to go in first. Nonetheless, Piper was thankful for the change in heart. 

“Alright, that settles it.” Piper nodded before melting into a devilish grin. “Let’s raid this place.”  

- - - - -  

“What the fuck happened in here.” 

Piper had to agree with Freiah there. Terrible would be an understatement; it looked like complete dogshit inside of this local corner store. What the fuck did happen in here? 

The food and containers were thrown across from the room and all over the floor. The ice cream buckets were filled with melted ice cream (actually, Piper could understand why that happened), not to mention the knocked over aisles. Yeah, it looked like something straight out of a horror movie. 

“Welp, time to go back.” Harris sighed, and turned to leave. 

“Ah-ah! You’re not going anywhere!” Tolu interrupted, blocking the door with her arm so Harris couldn’t go through.

“C’mon chat,” Freiah sighed, looking around the store with slight disappointment. “Let’s try to salvage what we can.” 

Piper could tell they were upset about the state the store was in. No doubt it was going to be at least a little difficult trying to find good food here. Plus, some of it might have expired already! Piper hoped to God, Jack Black himself, that they weren’t. 

They got to work relatively slowly, as the four of them couldn’t stop joking around about how shit it looked inside. Harris mentioned it looked like Korben’s room, and Piper couldn’t not giggle at that!

A good moment or so later, Piper actually got to work, stepping over fallen goods as she scoured the place for actual edible food. She reminded the group to check the expiration dates on the items as well, just so they didn’t get anything already inedible.

Luckily, from the food she did manage to salvage, the expiration dates were due up to July, and it was currently March right now, so that left a lot of time until it was inedible. So far, she got a couple bags of chips (unhealthy, she knows, but there wasn’t much, okay?), some meat products, and a couple of drinks. She unloaded her bunch into the Billy Showalter wagon outside, and went back in to collect more.  

Entering inside again, she looked around. Freiah and Tolu were collecting some more food, occasionally chatting with one another about what would be the best ones to pick, and Harris was- where was Harris? 

Piper investigated the place, where was that guy? 

Suddenly, Piper heard a noise on her right, and she snapped her head in that direction before being confronted with-

“Harris, what are you doing there?” Piper deadpanned, watching her fellow cook fill up a cup of red slushie. 

“Hey, there’s no expiration date, so that must mean it doesn’t expire, right?” He smirked. “And the blue slushie machine is kind of broken right now..” He added. 

Piper raised an eyebrow before realizing that the machine for the blue flavour slushie was gone- no, it was shattered! She had to look a little deeper on the other side of the counter to see that it was completely spilled out of the ground. 

“Isn’t it melted?” Piper asked Harris, looking into the contents of the red slushie machine. 

“Yeah.” Harris replied with a shrug. “But food’s food, so.” He shook his cup, blinking as the liquid swished around in the cup. “Actually, I think there might be some dead flies in here..” 

“Harris, why are you eating dead flies?” Tolu deadpanned, walking into the conversation. 

“I’m not- they just fell into the drink!” Harris defended. “I’m not eating just the flies!” 

“Yeah, but you’re still eating flies.” Piper said, rolling her eyes. “Get it right, at least.” She glanced around the store, checking out their surroundings. Her and the others had done a pretty good job at scavenging for food in this dump, they even let some sixers help them out! The Billy Showalter wagon was almost full with the food they got now, and Piper was certain she and Harris would be able to make enough food with it. 

Piper’s eyes began to drift elsewhere. She phased out of Tolu and Harris’ conversation as she realized something was stinking up. She glanced at the others to see if they noticed, but they were too busy arguing about whether eating melting slushie with dead flies floating inside was a good idea. 

Deciding to find out on her own, Piper got up and stepped away from the counter, Harris and Tolu not even caring about her departure. She walked towards a slightly agape door where the scent was coming from, the aroma growing with each step forwards. She had to hold in a gag as she pushed the door open. 

She was not at all prepared to see the sight she was faced with when she opened that door. 

About three or four bodies lay sprawled on the ground, limbs contorted beyond recognition. Their eyes were wide and unmoving, but that wasn’t the part Piper was most worried about. Their stomachs were ripped open messily, some of their intestines missing, leaving a huge bloody opening in the middle or their torsos. Blood leaked everywhere, staining the peoples’ clothes, the floor, the wall, and some of the ceiling as well. The bodies were all clumped in the corner, as if they were trying to hide, but whatever got them had found them out. 

Looking at the wounds, Piper could tell it was a mimic, since they always ate their victims’ insides out first. The longer PIper stared, the more dread sunk into her. These people didn’t make it. 

There were dead bodies inside the building. 

- - - - - 

Piper didn’t remember her screaming, but apparently she did. 

Freiah had run up to her almost immediately, asking her if she was okay before even thinking to look in the room. Piper couldn’t answer her, and could only stare at the sight in front of her. Freiah got the hint right away and glanced in the room as well, squinting their eyes at it before they gasped, snapping their eyes shut and turning away, muttering swears under their breath from the gore. 

“What?! What happened?” Tolu pounced up, looking at her friends with confusion and some concern. 

“Don’t- don’t look!” Freiah warned her, trying to get Piper to avert her own eyes away, but she wouldn’t- couldn’t move. The sight was disturbing, but she couldn’t find it in her to turn away. 

“Oh c’mon, it can’t be that bad.” Tolu rolled her eyes, before glancing at the room and gagging. “Holy-” She cursed under her breath, taking a step back. 

Harris went up to the group to check what’s going on. “What the sigma??” He questioned, his tone unserious as he swirled his melted slushie. Piper would have scolded him right now, but she couldn’t bring herself to speak. Harris peeked into the room a little more and his jaw fell agape, stepping back a bit himself. “Oh my-” 

Before he could finish, Elaina came running from the door, she probably heard Piper’s scream and went to go check on her. “Huh??” She asked the short gang, noticing their eyes were fixated on the contents of the room, and went to check it out.

“AH!!” Harris yelped when he heard Elaina’s voice, instinctively throwing the contents of his slushie at her as she peeked through the door. 

Then something happened. Elaina didn’t necessarily react to getting a cup of melted slushie thrown at her, her eyes were dilated, laser-focused on the gorey sight of the bodies rotting away in the room in front of her. Suddenly, her head snapped towards the group, Piper couldn’t describe it, but the look the taller girl gave them sent a surge of primal fear down her spine. 

Harris must have not taken the look kindly, because Piper saw him tense up. She hasn’t seen Harris tense up like that in a while…  

“Elaina? What the hell?!” Tolu snapped at her after a second, Xavier had made their way in by then, along with the other kids. Freiah noticed their presence and quickly shut the door before anyone noticed, and shot everyone a look of secrecy to keep their mouths shut. Piper assumed they didn’t want to traumatize their kids, which she could admire from them, at least. 

“Huh??” Elaina blinked back into reality. “What did I do?” 

Beside her, Harris scrunched up, trying to make as much space between him and Elaina as possible. Piper didn’t look at his face, but she was sure he was distraught. 

“You were doing a weird staring thing.” Xavier told her, walking up to the group. “And why do you guys look so traumatized?” They laughed, and Piper had to hold in punching them right in the gut. But they didn’t know, so it wasn’t fair. 

“There’s a-“ Tolu started, her eyes wide, as she pointed to the room. 

“I’ll tell you later.” Freiah quickly intervened, hoping that the kids wouldn’t hear or get curious. 

Xavier stared at Freiah with a puzzled look on their face, and they opened their mouth to reply, but got interrupted. “Piper, why’d you scream so loud?” Polly came up, Claire following close behind. 

Piper stammered. Freiah didn’t want to share this news with the sixers (at least not yet, Piper hopes) so she had to think of an excuse quick-

“Oh, we just saw a roach.” Freiah butted in, forcing a small laugh that even Piper was fooled by. “Yeah, it scared us all, Tolu managed to force it away, though.” They glanced at Tolu with a look that read ‘you better play along.’ Meanwhile, Harris looked at Freiah with an ‘are you insane?’ expression on his face, and Elaina just looked as confused as ever, but she kept her mouth shut at least. 

Tolu noticed and cleared her throat. “Ye-yeah! It was so huge- Piper you’re such a wuss!” She playfully hit Piper on the shoulder. Tolu’s acting wasn’t the best, but believable, at least. Also, Piper thinks she just wanted an excuse to hit her, acting or not. 

“Hey! It scared me, okay?” Piper retaliated against her, trying to make her response realistic to how she would usually act, even though the image stayed drilled in her head.  

“Oh, yikes.” Polly grimaced, and Piper was thankful she believed their act, especially since it was quickly thought of. “Well, it’s gone now, right?” 

“Yeah, right Tolu?” Freiah snapped their head towards their friend, a smile on their face, but death in their eyes.  

“Ye-yeah, obviously.” Tolu muttered. 

“Wow, this place is a mess!” Lael walked up to the group, whose vibe was now a mixed traumatized, confused and faux contentment. 

“Tell me about it.” Xavier sighed, still giving Freiah a look. Piper turned to see Freiah mouth ‘I’ll tell you later’ in response. Piper looked away swiftly, since it’s kind of weird to look at your friend’s mouth for too long. 

“We gathered some stuff, by the way.” Isaiah appeared, coming up to the group as well, cans of beans in his arms. Piper acknowledged the effort.

“Thanks guys.” Freiah grinned, looking over their other kids who were also now collecting food and minding their business. “We didn’t ask you to, but you did anyway- I appreciate it!” 

“Oh, Lochlan actually told us we should.” Lael shrugged. 

“Well, that’s good enough.” Freiah nodded. 

“Also, we’re running out of space in the wagon.” 

“…Get your arms ready because you’re gonna have some carrying to do.” 

- - - - - 

Piper hummed ‘You Belong With Me’ by the one and only, Tay-Tay Swift on the way back to Freiah’s house. 

Behind her, the Billy Showalter wagon bumped against the stones and pebbles that littered the sidewalk they trudged along on, the food rattling with every tremble. She was at the front of the group, Isaiah and Lael close behind. She didn’t necessarily enjoy hearing their voices behind her back, but she didn’t want to complain, to say anything, to open her mouth. The image went rampant in her mind; each time she blinked, she could see their lifeless eyes staring right at her.

Deciding to take her mind off of that, she glanced behind her. Aside from Lael and Isaiah, Freiah and Harris were also pretty closeby. Harris seemed to be putting as much space between him and Elaina as possible, again. It was that one rainy Tuesday all over again. 

Anyway, His eyes were focused on the ground in front of him as he walked like he had a million thoughts racing through his head, and he seemed to be clinging onto Freiah without making physical contact, if that made sense. He just sort of… hung around the air around the other, who sort of walked awkwardly beside him. They looked up after a second and made eye contact with Piper, then threw her a small smile. 

Piper smiled back. 

Kicking some growing crawl away from the sidewalk so she could pass through with the Billy Showalter wagon, she thought of the many meals she could make with the food they’ve gathered to distract her mind. She hoped that the group could go on even more scouting missions soon, since Piper wanted to be extra prepared. 

She took a look at the contents of the wagon, and began brainstorming meal ideas, how much she’d serve to the others, and what they would have left to spare. In the time she was a cook, she tried to study the eating habits of everyone, a habit she picked up from Freiah, who suggested it. It really helped her figure out how much food she really needed for a meal, so she could save more.  

Piper planned until she they were all nearing Freiah’s house. Once the house was in view, she sucked in a breath; she had already planned out the next few days’ meals. But, even better: 

She was prepared. 

Chapter Text

Macy ran her hand across Bill’s fur, feeling the slightly muddy texture under her fingers. She was expecting the group that went to Fudd’s to be coming back any time now. It was getting kind of late now, and she didn’t want them to get caught up in anything bad… 

She shook that thought. They’d come back, obviously. Maybe there’s just that much food there, so they had to take more time to gather it all! 

Since the door to the backyard was open for convenience, Macy could hear Parker rambling on and on outside on the porch, bringing Izaiah down with him. ‘At least they’re outside, away from me’ Macy thought, yelping as Bill jumped off from her. 

“Hey Macy.” James greeted, a cup of water in his hand. Macy yelped again, not expecting him to be inside the house with her. She just assumed everyone was outside, so it surprised her that James was, in fact, inside the house with her. 

“Oh, sorry, did I scare you?” He apologized, scratching the back of his head. 

“Yeah, you really did, lil bro.” Macy groaned, now standing up to jokingly scold him. “Do you always just appear out of nowhere?” 

James laughed awkwardly in response, and began apologizing at a much faster rate. 

“Woah, woah. It’s okay, it’s okay.” Macy chuckled, gesturing for the kid to calm down. 

“If you say so.” James sighed, sipping his water some more. “Anyway, when do you think the group will be back?” He asked, looking through the big living room window. “They should be here any time now, right?” 

Macy nodded. She agreed with James, where were those goobers? 

“Yeah, I don’t know.. That’s what I was thinking too.” She shrugged. “I’m pretty sure they’re on their way back now. Maybe it’s just a small complication or something.” 

“I hope they didn’t run into any trouble or anything.” James muttered, looking down at his cup, swirling the water that was in it. “That would be..”

“Hey, don’t worry about it.” Macy smiled at him, noticing his expression darkening. “I’m sure they’ll be okay, right? They’ll be here soon.” 

James smiled back. “Yeah, I guess you’re right..” He chuckled. “I’m sure nothing bad happened to them.”  

“I’m just gonna go back outside, if that’s cool with you?” He then asked Macy, gesturing to the open back door leading to the backyard. “I just came in for a quick drink, anyway..” 

“Oh, yeah, of course.” Macy nodded. “You don’t need to ask me, you can just go if you want.” She shrugged. “I might come out soon too, so I’ll meet you outside, ‘kay?”

James nodded. “Alright. Seeya, Macy.” He waved, then he went out the door. 

Macy then sighed, and looked around the now quiet living room. Suddenly, a couple of figures caught her eye through the window. She squinted and immediately recognized it as Piper herself, a wagon full of goods bouncing right behind her. 

On instinct, Macy ran up to the window and pressed her face against the glass, waving her arms furiously at the coming group as she screamed at them through the window (Did they hear her? No. Did the kids in the backyard hear her? Yeah.). 

It took the short blonde a moment to notice her tomfoolery, as her eyes were drilled to the ground. Why, Macy wasn’t sure. But after a good second or two, she finally glanced up, and Macy watched her laugh.

‘What??’ She mouthed, her lips upturned into a smile. 

Macy smiled back, and then rushed to the front door. 

Once her socks hit the texture of Freiah’s front steps, she recoiled from how weird it felt underneath her through the fabric, but she pushed through like a sigma. 

“Why’d you guys take so long??” She ran up to Piper, who, upon further inspection, seemed to have some sort of glossy expression, like her mind was elsewhere. 

“Oh, just..” Piper trailed off, and that only enhanced Macy’s suspicions. The blonde turned her eyes away from her, and Macy tried to catch where she was looking. 

“Are you okay, Piper??” She asked, having enough of being left in the dark. 

“What? Oh, yeah.” Piper nodded, but her tone didn’t match her words. Macy frowned.

“You sure?” She raised an eyebrow. 

Piper fidgeted with her hands, and kept her eyes off of Macy, she wished she would just look at her and tell her what’s up. 

Then, she moved up closer to Macy, and before she could ask if she was going to kiss her, Piper whispered: “I’m not sure if Freiah wants to share it, but I’ll tell you later, okay?” She looked around nervously, more on the kids (or better name for them, ‘sixers’) who seemed to be having a great time, chatting amongst each other and joking off. 

“Uh... Okay?” Macy blinked. “What are we sharing?” 

“It’s-...” Piper sighed. “I said I’ll tell you later... Maybe as a group. Without the kids.” She looked at the younger group again. Macy wondered how many times she’s going to do that. “It’s not that I don’t like them- actually, I don’t. But that’s not the reason why they can’t hear.” 

Macy held back a giggle as Piper admitted to disliking Freiah’s ‘children,’ but she kept listening. “And the reason is..?” She asked again, still not grasping why this is so important that Piper’s gloomy and the sixers can’t hear about it. 

Piper shot her a look, and checked around her for what may be the fiftieth time already. “Uh, Freiah. Over here.” She whisper-yelled, gesturing for the Filipino to come closer. Freiah quickly glanced over to Harris beside him (they were right next to each other- it warmed Macy’s heart so much) before happily trotting over to her and Piper. They seemed pretty normal, what’s up?

“Yeah?” They smiled, glancing at both Macy and Piper. If Piper hadn’t told her all that stuff earlier, Macy would have passed it off as Freiah just being Freiah- but Piper was being weird, Piper was being suspicious (haha sus), Piper wasn’t being herself , so Macy obviously had to find out what was going on.  

“Piper’s being all weird, and saying she’ll tell me something without the sixers??” Macy quired, glancing between the two of them. 

Freiah’s expression slightly dropped, and Macy regretted asking if it was that bad- or did she? The suspicion was killing her. 

“Ye-yeah, we’ll tell you...” They muttered, and looked around their surroundings the same way Piper was doing a while ago. “Somewhere else. Privately.” 

“Woah, privately, Freiah?” Macy couldn’t hold herself back from saying that joke. Even Piper stopped being so emo from her response, bursting out into giggles. 

“Oh my god...” Freiah groaned, a smile on their face as they rubbed their eyes. “Uh, anyway... Meet in the basement in, say… ten minutes? I’ll tell the others.” 

- - - - -

Ten minutes her ass- it took them about twenty minutes to actually get to the damn basement. 

Oh whatever, what matters now is that Macy’s in the basement, along with the other ‘older kids’, which included Freiah and Piper, Xavier who apparently also didn’t know about what the fuck is going on, Elaina, Tolu and Harris. They had locked the door to the basement so the kids wouldn’t break in, and let them do whatever they were doing above ground. They got the good ones, Isaiah and James, to watch over them, so they’ll be fine for a couple of minutes… Hopefully. 

“Sooo…” Macy whistled, leaning against the foosball table. “What’s up?” 

“Yeah, spit it out already!” Xavier chimed in with their fake Scottish accent. 

“So…” Piper started with a sigh, clasping her hands together as she looked around the room like she was presenting in some sort of business meeting. 

“Oh, let’s just tell them!” Tolu butted in with a nervous breath. “We saw a couple of, uhh... Not alive people in the corner of the Fudd’s…-” 

“Tolu, you don’t have to censor it.” Harris said, and Macy forgot he was in the room for a second. Usually when he was present, he’d make himself known to everyone in the room. Now, he was just… quiet , which Macy didn’t like at all. 

Wait. Not alive people... Dead bodies? 

“Tolu- not alive people?” Macy quired. “So, basically dead bodies. Don’t tell me you found actual dead bodies in the Fudd’s.” She laughed- this was all some big joke, it had to be! 

Tolu, Piper and Freiah got quiet, and Harris froze up. Elaina was already dead silent before they all went downstairs. Macy blinked. “Right guys?” 

Piper cleared her throat. “While looking around the place, we… stumbled upon a room with mangled dead bodies, probably left there by a mimic.” She averted her eyes away from the group, tension rising in the room. 

“Yeah...” Tolu sighed. “It was, uh... Something .” 

“Sounds fun!” Xavier grinned, and everyone deadpanned. “I love dead bodies!” 

“No, Xavier. They’re being for real… right guys?” Macy muttered, her head finally wrapping around this whole thing. She turned to Tolu, Piper and Freiah, since they’re the ones who are most likely to answer her, as Elaina and Harris didn’t seem to be much in the chatting mood. 

“Yeah.” Freiah tapped their necklace. “We’re not lying. We saw actual bodies there. The sight was pretty gruesome too.” 

“Why didn’t you let me go in then?” Xavier complained, and Macy couldn’t understand how they still weren’t taking this seriously. 

“Wha- because you’d do shit like this!” Piper argued, seeming even more fed up than Macy thought. “Just not taking it seriously or something?! What is wrong with you?” 

“A lot of things.” Xavier hummed. “Oh c’mon! Can we go back so I can check it out?-” 

“Guys.” Harris cut in, making Macy jump three feet in the air. He then gestured to Freiah, who was fidgeting with their jewelry awkwardly. 

“Uh, heh… thanks.” They started, clearing their throat. “Can we like… not mention this to the sixers? Please? I just… don’t want them to know.” 

“Why not?” Macy quired. “I think they deserve to know.” 

“Yeah, me too, but…” Freiah sighed. “If they know then they’ll want to go back and see for themself, and who knows? It might be too much for them.” 

“Fries. You do know that the sixers have probably seen worse than that, right?” Tolu said, giving them a look of uncertainty. 

Freiah sighed. “I know, but still. Some people just don’t react nicely to gore and stuff, and I don’t want them to not sleep at night.” 

“I don’t know, I think they’d like it.” Xavier shrugged. “Especially Lochlan and Izaiah.” 

“We’re being serious, Xavier.” Piper but in. “Think of the long-term effects. This could definitely spark up something serious. We have to be careful.” 

“‘Careful’ by not telling them?” Macy asked. “Look, Freiah, I love you, but they’re gonna have to know at some point. We can’t keep this from them forever.”

“I know.” They sighed. “We will tell them later, just… not now. I can’t bring myself to do that.” 

“Well, let like- Piper or Elaina tell them then.” Macy suggested. “They were there, they could do that.” 

“Huh?” Elaina blinked, looking up from her arm where she was scratching to zone back into reality for a little bit. 

“Don’t ‘huh’ me, you giraffe.” Macy screamed back at her. 

“Is this settled now? Can we go upstairs?” Harris asked, looking up at everyone. 

“Why are you desperate to leave?” Tolu raised an eyebrow. 

“I don’t want Parker eating all of our food rations again. And I’m assuming Piper doesn’t either.” He slow-turned over to his fellow cook, an expectant look on his face. 

“Oh… yeah!” Piper exclaimed, “Uh, I think we’re gonna go now, just so the food is safe.” She said to everyone, slowly making her way towards the basement door as she still kept her vision on the group. 

“Alright.” Xavier muttered. “If Parker eats any of the food, just smack him and then don’t give him food tonight.” They added with a  snicker. 

“Yeah, we’ll make sure.” Piper laughed, before heading out the door with Harris close behind. 

After they departed, a silence held the group captive. 

“So, promise you guys won’t tell them?” Freiah finally spoke up, spinning the blue clasp that clipped onto their necklace, a frequent habit. “I’m planning on telling them soon, but not right now.” 

“Uh, sure we can do that.” Tolu muttered, looking around the group, as if to scan for genuinity. 

“Fine.” Xavier huffed “But don’t expect it to be for too long. I kinda wanna tell Lochlan about this.” 

“Of course you do.” Tolu rolled her eyes. 

“Fuck is that supposed to mean?” Xavier argued, putting on their fake Scottish accent as they spoke. 

“Yeah, I can do that.” Macy shrugged. “But I still think we should tell them.” 

“Don’t worry, we will.” Freiah assured, as Xavier and Tolu started to bicker like always. “Just when the time’s right, okay? I promise we will.” 

- - - - -

Before she knew it, Macy was leaning against the couch’s armrest, a plate of food in her hands. They had switched to paper plates and utensils because the group soon realized how they should reserve water. If she was being honest, Macy didn’t even know how they still had water, but she tried not to think about it too much so she wouldn't jinx it. 

“You should have punched him.” Kaela commented. The topic that came up amongst the district twelve citizens was The White Boy Experience, which was basically just a collection of random experiences the group had with none other than the White Boy. Yes, they had a couple white boys in the group, but they apparently had experiences with even whiter boys, so they just traded stories. Macy had just finished talking about her latest white boy experience with an annoying boy in her class. 

“I wanted to.” She replied, twirling her spaghetti noodles with her dry fork. “But I just wasn’t feeling it that time, I dunno. It was pretty early in the morning so I wasn’t awake enough.” 

“Yeah, honestly I can support that.” Piper nodded. “But then that just makes everything worse, right? It’s the morning, you’re already tired, and some entitled white boy thinks he can just mess around and be a jerk to you? Who does that?” 

“Yeah, Piper. You get it.” Macy said. “Boys are so dumb sometimes.” 

“Hey!” Parker interrupted with a pout and crossed his arms. “I’m right here!” 

“Me too!” Lael added, doing the same thing. 

“We weren’t talking about you!” Piper groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose in exasperation. “It was just in general- we didn’t mean every single boy on this earth!” 

“Although you do fall under that category..” Macy heard her whisper, which caused her to choke on her spaghetti and almost spit out her food. 

“Macy!” Tega cried, looking at her in disgust. “Keep that to yourself!” 

“Sorry, sorry.” Macy coughed in return, alternating between giggling her ass off and choking on her food. She was certain she would have started dying right there on the spot if Freiah didn’t hand her that water and told her to slow down. 

“Wow, I thought you were going to die for a minute there.” James chuckled, rubbing the back of his head. “Are you okay though?” 

“Yep, yeah- I am. I’m okay.” Macy heaved, still recovering from dying. 

“Alright, good.” Freiah sighed, a smile present on their face as they did so. “Take it slow, okay?” 

“Oh, what did you guys do while we were gone?” Tolu cut in, looking at Izaiah, Tega, James, Parker and Macy. 

Tega shrugged. “Not much.” He responded. “Pretty boring. I mean, Parker and Izaiah tried to break into Fries’ neighbours house, and they did, but then they got bored and went back.” 

“Are you fucking stupid.” Xavier blinked, wearing their fake Scottish accent for the fiftieth time. 

“Yes!” Parker replied confidently, and Lael burst out into laughter beside him. 

“Maybe…” Izaiah said innocently, batting his eyes and swaying on his chair. “There’s a chance...” 

“Oh, but didn’t you find some grapes and other stuff in there?” James mentioned, slipping some spaghetti into his mouth. “And you were about to eat them all but then Macy yelled at you?” 

Macy couldn’t hold back her evil giggling at that. She noticed Piper and Harris giving Parker and Izaiah the blankest stares, which caused her to giggle even more. 

“Uhh…” Izaiah muttered. “Maybe?” 

“...And you didn’t tell us?” Harris stared at him, blue orbs piercing through the kid like deadly lasers. 

“Yeah.” Parker nodded, his confidence shining through him like a glowing disco ball enough to blind every person within a five metre radius. 

Piper and Harris kept their eyes on the two white boys for a good while before both sighing with clear disappointment. Harris did it an extra time for good measures. 

“I literally can’t believe you two.” Piper deadpanned. “Where did you put it?” 

“In the back of the fridge hiding behind some ice or something.” Tega replied, drinking out of his cup and waving his hand in the refrigerator’s direction absentmindedly. “Or something, I don’t know, I wasn’t paying that much attention.”