Work Text:
Val stared around at the town as she made her way to the Nasty Burger for her shift. She hated working there, but she wanted to help her dad out with the rent for their apartment. Her fists clenched in anger every time she thought about how her dad lost his job. It hadn’t even been his fault! Axion Labs had no right to fire him for damage caused by a monster!
But she was also worried about how long she’d keep the job. She’d had three shifts already where there were no customers. And she didn’t blame people. Everyone was pretty much holed up in their homes. Whenever they did go out, they dragged their children with them, never letting go of their hand. She’d even seen some parents tie a rope around their kid’s wrist and tie the other end to their own wrist.
It felt like they were living in some sort of dystopian society. But weren’t they? Monsters were attacking. Kids were walking into the forest and dropping into comas.
She glanced down at the device around her ankle, its green lights blinking softly. She’d tried several times to remove it, but was so far unsuccessful. And did she really want to remove it? She could still hear the whispers calling her to go to the forest. The other kids could hear it too. She could hear them whispering about it at school where the exterior doors were locked and the teachers kept a close eye on them, escorting them between classes.
And when kids did get away from the adults, they were found clawing at the border, trying to push through. Some of them screamed or cried, but Valerie thought the creepiest ones were the ones who stayed silent, their gazes blank.
But that wasn’t the only thing either. Every night she had the same dream. And every morning she woke up unable to remember anything other than a melody, the whisper of words skirting the edge of her thoughts. From conversations she overheard the other kids were having them too. Sometimes she heard younger kids humming the melody when she passed them on her way to work.
The one good thing about the border though, was that apart from keeping the children inside the town it kept the monsters out. When she walked up to the edge of town to stare at the forest she sometimes saw them trying to claw their way through the border to get into town.
The adults had set up border patrols to shoot any monsters that got close. Unfortunately, the Fentons hadn’t had any time to really study any of the captured monsters. They were kept busy building and fixing weapons for the border patrols and constantly trying to maintain and improve the border that kept the town safe.
Valerie just wondered how long it would last. How long would it be before the border failed or before monsters broke through? And how long could they last without supplies from larger cities? Monsters had started attacking any cars that left the border, though for some reason they didn’t wander too far, never going to the neighboring towns. She supposed that they wanted to stay close to the forest.
The Fentons were also working on monster-proofing their tank of and RV so that they’d have something to do supply runs in. Valerie just hoped it would work and that it would be done before the food in the local grocery ran out.
Something needed to be done. The forest and whatever dwelled within it needed to be destroyed.
She needed to figure out how to remove the anklet and get her weapons back from the Fentons. Burning the forest had almost worked.
Maybe they just needed a bigger explosion.