This Is Him, There Isn't Anymore to Him

***This Is Him, There Isn't Anymore to Him*** is the first episode and series premiere of Ezekiel Elix, Prodigy of Yellowcake. It serves as the first part of the *Nucleus of the Spiral* arc.

## Synopsis

"Ezekiel tries stealing back a piece of his past."

## Plot

“Entry one.”

“The desolation stretches as the human eye could see.”

“This never-expanding expanse of rusted metal and burned sand that we lie trapped inside of. The sun has become nothing more than a feeble orb floating above us, overshadowed in the furthest depths of darkened skies, struggling to pierce the thick atmosphere of smog and dust, but only casting this sickly orange hue upon these forsaken lands we could once lay our relaxed eyes upon. We were safe within its borders, and now we are within a world recognizable, a world where the sins of mankind had come to dance and flourish, like mold growing over the rotting wallpaper of an abandoned home.”

“In the heart of this barren wasteland, our solitary settlement stood, this defiant beacon of refusal to surrender to the corrupted elements, crammed between the scattered remains of crumbling skyscrapers and scorched earth that burns all flesh that touches it. It clings to life, just like how we cling to ours, clinging to it because it is all that remains of our selves. We are but footprints individually pressed and etched into the sands of the most magnificent of beaches to have ever existed, although now, we have the sounds of the high tide nearing, but we don’t know where or when it comes, only that it is and it will.”

“Wandering through our labyrinth of makeshift shanties, cobbled together from the scavenged debris of previous eras gone by, and held upright through our sheer force of will, choking on the smoke that belched out from the jury-rigged chimneys and only added to the ever-present haze that blackened the skies and blocked out the sun, I found myself guided towards the source of such a familiar sound, alien sounding amongst only the howling of wind and the screeching of wildlife, that of a thunderous reverberation, metal against metal, hammering together over and over, again and again. Tolling bells, they were tolling bells. I knew then, and I know now.”

“By the time such an answer had formed inside my depraved mind, aching for air and sleep, a small gathering emerged through the smog, like ghoulish entities. Not a single one of them had even the slightest interest in my misery, rather they stepped around me as if I was another part of the cracked asphalt beneath my dirty feet. They were following the distant bells. I felt myself become weak in the knees. The smells, the sounds, the aching and the breaking, it was all too much to endure at once. How could life still supposedly prosper underneath these conditions? How could it still walk or talk like us? Was it still us, even without the very faces that we grew to recognize from one another? My eyes grew heavier while I wheezed and coughed on smoke as black as rot and disease. I feared the worst, then I feared this was the end.”

“That’s when I felt myself being lifted back up and pulled back towards the light.”

“A kind hand shrouded under black garbs, black as smoke, with one too many fingers.”

“It came from nowhere, or rather it came from where I least expected it to come from. Their face was nothing but pure hollow darkness under their hood, but their voice, that voice, that very voice that kept me from drifting off there and then, becoming one with the dust flowing in the wind around me. With burning lungs, I was silenced in his presence, terrified of what was come to, if anything at all, for he was undoubtedly a creature from the surface, but the fact he shared a voice the same as the flesh and blood our maker had crafted with his own hands. He spoke to me.”

“*No abandoned soul should deserve to fight for breath before reaching the steps of greatness.*”

“*Follow if you will, for there is always room for one another. Godspeed.*”

“*Then, he just released me from his grasp and joined the rest of his shadowy brethren.*”

“Although then I felt nothing but trembling terror, afraid I was on the verge of being snatched up and taken from this realm by a reaper dressed in human skin, the fact he walked and I followed after like a curious child chasing down their parental guardian, I knew that it was not an ominous warning about a horrid fate that nearly befell me then. It was but an offering unlike any offering I would ever receive then, and I accepted without even knowing what for. That’s finally when, for what was perhaps only a single moment, but felt like forever, I swear the howling winds all went completely silent, just this absolutely nothingness lingering in the air, except for those distant bells luring me in.”

“If a path opened itself before your very eyes, wouldn’t you know how deep it goes?”

“**Yellowcake**” was its name.

It wasn’t merely a settlement anymore, hadn’t been since after the start of the previous decade, rather it had became the closest approximation to a city that the descendants of mankind have yet to reach again, not to imply its state was still far from hospitable. Sprawling across hundreds of kilometers worth of barren dirt and sand were hundreds of shelters that had been rebuilt from the ground up through the fragile pieces of dilapidated buildings, many of which still remaining as skeletal frameworks, looming over like monoliths, in the process of being slowly stripped and broken down into their most basic of elements, leaving an incomplete skyline that abruptly stopped midway through, like it had been cleaved in half.

Cracked walls, sagging roofs, and faded graffiti pockmarked the oldest buildings down below, clustered together into a rudimentary, yet tight-knit suburb that randomly clashed and conflicted with nearby modern buildings still standing, or sparsely placed makeshift dwellings made out of pure necessity, ranging from tattered tents, to hollowed out chunks of fallen buildings, to rusted shipping containers, dotting the landscape like a patchwork quilt made from corrugated metal, broken wood, cracked glass, and whatever worn building material that probably comes to mind. Yellowcake was like one massive scrapyard full of little life, like tiny sentient bacteria living off the fly ridden fat of the land, each with their traits, identities, lives, friends, and families.

In the dead center of the civilization lies the most perplexing structure of all, a massive industrial building as if a gigantic metal cube had been dropped from the skies inside and embedded into the sands below. It was the “**Lead Block**,” a facility, a shelter, the very heart of Yellowcake itself that serves as the home to the most intelligent of New Mankind minds, not only the source of the power flowing through the city, but the creators behind each cures behind all its debilitating environmental problems, having exponentially reduced the dense smog up in the skies down enough that sunlight can shine through again even on cloudy days. Without its presence, the sheer unpredictability of New Mankind would still remain one enigma after another.

Shielding its inhabitants from the foreign dangers that lurked outside its boundaries, a makeshift barricade had been haphazardly constructed from virtually anything that had been too broken to have any useful salvageable parts, but large and heavy enough to provide protection, shielded the civilization of Yellowcake from all sides, a massive circular barrier that wrapped around the entire dystopian city in a distorted circle, preventing most things from getting in, and most things from getting out. A massive billboard sign, the few of which still standing tall, despite whatever contents it previously held having been burnt away into a plain surface of burnt, dented metal, had been repurposed into a city limit sign, reading the very same name that all knew from the heart, and a rough population number, one that had miraculously reached the few millions by only a few years into the twenty-twenties.

As the blazing ball in the sky slowly descends and blankets Yellowcake within comforting cold, chilling its singed sands enough that they were bearable to be stood on for longer than minutes at a time, most of the population remains awake even at such late hours, having readjusted towards the nocturnal times as working under the sun was treacherous if not a death wish, all while taking care of their small businesses, services, and so on. Sleep was now but a minimal concern for New Mankind, as those who had been altered in comparison to the Old Mankind had earned a fitting terminology from the rest of the populace, “**Insomniacs**,” with the average individual able to last between forty and fifty hours straight, before showing the first signs of mental fatigue. They slept during the day, intentionally evading the extreme light and heat outside, and awakened much later to carry out their duties in the peace and quiet of night.

However, as the morning approaches and the deep orange glow of dawn glows over the sandy horizon, outside one of many of the market stalls and stores selling virtually anything of value their owners manage to get their hands on, typically through bargaining if not digging through the trash within the deepest reaches of the pile-ups located in the western edges of Yellowcake, one such individual suffers a rude awakening, as the metallic screech of an industrial machine in motion outside, followed by the shifting of whatever metal coffin they were seemingly trapped in, suddenly startles them awake.

“Uggh… whadda hell… who’s out there?!”

On cue as if in response to his confused murmurs and shouts, the entire metallic box itself suddenly begins to lift and tilt over onto one side, causing its scattered contents, including the living vagrant inside, to momentarily jolt from the loss of balance, before the latter falls right out through the hanging open lid and roughly crashes against the hot sands of the street below. With garbage, ranging from spoiled food, to bits of scrap metal, to old rags of weathered fabric clinging onto his tattered clothes, the homeless man aggressively flips onto his backside, seeing his place of residence, simply that of a beaten up dumpster, having its trash emptied into the top of an garbage truck, its shocked driver none the wiser there was literally a person sleeping inside.

“Buddy, what are you nuts?! You were this close to being compacted into a cube back there!” The garbageman exclaims out the driver side window, only for the enraged homeless man to maniacally rush and grapple onto their door, just about close to reaching through the window and grabbing them by the collar, with pieces of trash falling off his clothes whilst he screams through gnarled teeth, “THAT’S MY STUFF YOU’RE TAKING, BUSTER!”

“Dumpsters are city property, and that includes anything inside of them! They’re not beds for bums like you!” The garbageman responds unintimidated despite literally being within reach of someone who looked like was on the verge of murdering someone with his bare hands. As the garbage truck slowly places the dumpster down where it was on the street curb, now without its precious foul-smelling treasures inside, the homeless man helplessly falls back onto the ground below, as the garbage truck speeds off without the slightest hesitation, leaving behind a large dust cloud and several amused passersby watching in awe.

“EARLY BIRD SCUM!” The homeless man coughs, throwing an aluminum can in their direction despite them being far gone by then, before attempting to forcefully tackle and topple over the emptied dumpster within a fit of rage, only to give up and stumble off down the street in a daze, now without a place to sleep once more. Dusting himself off and cleaning his beaten up coat, the vagabond takes note of the large holes and rips on his undershirt, appearing manmade as if they had been manually torn from the inside, although seemingly pays them no mind besides a low grunt, while continuing his way and periodically muttering under his breath, “*…take my trash, will ya… throw me on the street, will ya…*“

The “**Early Birds**” were regarded as the least altered of New Mankind, so much so that many of them could be easily mistaken for members of Old Mankind, and that the majority of them hadn’t yet manifested any external physical mutations, at least none notable from first glance. As they still retain Old Mankind’s diurnal nature and complete light tolerance, capable of working when most of the population weren’t able to do so, collapsing into hibernation every few days, the hardest and most rewarding of labor inside Yellowcake was deemed their responsibility on behalf of the city council, while the remaining majority, arguably the first and latest generations of Insomniacs, the most mutated by age and birth, did all the undesirable dirty work.

Nearly collapsing outside an alleyway in the midst of a coughing fit, the homeless man struggles grabbing onto the weathered brick wall as a means of support. With greasy black hair speckled with sand, unshaved hair that formed an equally dark patchy beard, and washed out blue eyes, the right of which instead a splotchy deep red that slightly bled into the sclera of his eye, the first sign of any mutations, their appearance was quite the eyesore, especially seeing how regularly maintained hygiene was considered a luxury by a majority of the lower classes in Yellowcake, and how the northwestern region was mostly populated by such, he fit in perfectly with others. Stepping further into the rising sunlight, gradually revealing his lumpy, blemished skin stretched tightly over his emaciated form, slightly warped nose, prominent cheekbones, and sunken lips that receded far enough to permanently reveal denture-like rows of yellowed teeth, the mutant homeless man trudges down the empty road towards who knows where.

This is our hero of the story, “**Ezekiel Elsegood**,” doesn’t exactly seem like it, but rest assured, this is him, there isn’t anymore to him, at least just not yet that is. Only then does he surround himself with his kin, as the further he walks do the sidewalks and alleyways become slowly filled with the presence of crudely constructed tents and wooden shacks, the “homes” of the forgotten and dismissed members of the city, all of which just as mutated and scarred as Ezekiel himself, with swollen limbs, wrinkled faces, loose skin, the occasional third arm, any disfigurement that the human mind can imagine and theoretically produce. Ezekiel eyeballs a small group of them together, one strumming the strings of a makeshift guitar with oddly jointed fingers, and another hitting the bottoms of several metal buckets turned upside-down as if they were a set of drums, before he finally glances away and continues onwards.

Through only one of the hundreds of alleyways, crawling inside after finally catching his breath, Ezekiel wanders through them like they were an intersecting maze made from brick walls, lined with mossy growths and crooked pipes, many of which miraculously still standing exactly where they were first built by Old Mankind themselves. Digging into his coat pocket and pulling out an old rusted lighter, repeatedly flicking its wheel to light his way through the darkness, after what feels like hours of repeatedly retracing his steps over and over again, he finally finds himself where he wanted to be. Gliding his free hand against one of the walls, feeling its rocky surface which, just briefly, like a split second, lose its texture in favor of something akin to smooth steel, Ezekiel feels it against the neighboring brick to make sure, before repeatedly banging the side of his fist against the camouflaged surface, indeed resulting in a series of heavy metallic clangs rather than the rocky thumps he’d get from punching stone.

Apparently anticipating a reaction from doing so, Ezekiel doesn’t get one, impatiently waiting for several seconds before again banging his hand against the fake brick, creating another series of metallic clanging much louder than before. The brick wall seems to momentarily shudder, before one single brick notably creaks, sliding and shifting inwards enough that it lets out a glimmer of artificial light from whatever was behind the wall. A pair of disembodied walls immediately peer out through the rectangular hole, first looking annoyed, then disgusted upon seeing that familiar face of mismatched colored eyes and coarse skin.

“Yeech!”

The removed brick instantly protracts back outwards and restores the illusion, thus prompting another series of heavy metal bangs from the outside, this time even more louder than before from the vagrant Ezekiel demanding to be let in, although whoever was seemingly on the other side refuses to budge and feigns absence, not until he begins knocking non-stop without pause. An exasperated male voice, muffled from being behind the wall, calls out in defiance.

“You know it’s not happening! Give me a break for once!”

Ezekiel angrily snarls and pockets his lighter, before kicking the fake brick wall with all his might, causing its structure to again shudder, almost rippling as if he was splashing a surface of liquid, causing the disembodied voice to noticeably grunt and yell back in frustration.

“DON’T KICK THE WALL! YOU KNOW THAT HURTS ME!”

Ezekiel ignores them and readies another kick, only to momentarily lose his balance and end up missing altogether, instead swinging too high up and falling backwards onto the ground below, audibly groaning and holding his head in pain. Another brick within the fake wall again retracts inwards, with the eyes staring back out through the hole, looking even more annoyed, as another brick randomly recedes, this time revealing a disembodied mouth that speaks clearly.

“I wouldn’t be on the down low if you were able to behave for once! Just like usual, you’re back here embarrassing yourself and bothering my patrons!”

“Excuse me if I wanted to find a shoulder to cry on!” The homeless man bemoans whilst slowly helping himself back up, occasionally stumbling and wobbling, still rubbing the back of his head and hesitantly putting pressure on his non-extended leg which he had nearly fell onto like a buffoon.

“You know there’s about a hundred other taverns out there in Yellowcake, right?” The voice in the wall responds without the slightest sense of pity in his voice, the light peering through the shifted bricks by now being the only thing illuminating the desperate vagabond standing in the alleyway. “The fact I showed you compassion when you were lying almost dead outside my bar doesn’t mean you get to leech off my good will every chance that you get! I’m not going to let you drag me down your level! You are, without a doubt, NOT allowed in here anymore!”

“Raeburn, please, hear me out! You don’t get it! Th-They ransacked me!”

“You… have nothing to ransack? What did they take, your toenail clippings?”

“They kicked me out my dumpster, stole all my stuff, threw me on the street like a rat!”

“That’s quite typical of you. If anything, that’s probably been every morning for you.”

“It didn’t used to be like that! I tell you, these… these…”

“…Oh no, please don’t start.”

“It’s injustice, I tell you, injustice! Ever since the city council re-election, Yellowcake has begun intentionally turning a blind eye towards us homeless folks, even though we cannot even work or fend for ourselves! This city was built for the sole purpose of equality among its people ever since the end of the old ages nearly two decades ago now, and it’s finally starting to fester again with the same corruption that was responsible for completely tearing Old Mankind apart into fine little pieces! They were like apes back then! APES!”

“Enough.”

“Hear me out, okay?! There’s reason why they’re all gone now, and we’re the ones still here in their place! They were obliterated by their own untamed hubris, their own uncontrollable drive for something better and better every single waking moment of their lives, and it was that drive that took them downwards, down and down and down straight into their own early graves, and then KABOOM, nothing of them left besides their broken down machines and gadgets for us to tinker with to try and get working again!”

“ENOUGH.”

“Do you hear me, Raeburn?! We’re on the verge of our downward spiral, and it will be at the tail end of the previous one that’s the reason why we were all choking on smoke and ash for the first ten years in this dry, desolate hellhole! The signs are all there! The writing is on the walls! Don’t you see them?! Doesn’t anyone here even see them like me?! History is repeating itself! Everything will crash once again and we’ll burn worse than ever before! Things are changing, and they’re changing for the WORST!”

“ENOUGH!” The entire wall shakes from the volume of Raeburn’s voice, loud enough to stun the motormouthed derelict into silence. “Are you DONE?! If you’d let me actually get a word in for once, I would concur that things are actually changing for the better! The reason that it has been tough on you and only you is because you don’t want to work like others do, nothing but drinking booze and sleeping in filthy heaps of disgusting trash! You are not weak, you are not ill, you are hardly even lethargic despite your poor sleeping conditions, all of that means you are perfectly capable of performing labor! The age of you freeloaders is starting to go and come, so either put your bottles down and pick up some tools to help around here, or shut your mouth and leave us alone! WHY NOT BUILD YOUR OWN YELLOWCAKE FOR ALL I CARE?!”

With Raeburn immediately disappearing back into the fake wall without saying another word, Ezekiel remains taken aback, standing motionless in the darkness of the dead silent alleyway, before eventually walking back towards where the camouflaged wall is and lightly knocking once more, although of course not yielding anymore answers from the person on the other side, the latter clears his throat.

“…I have money this time around.”

The camouflaged wall suddenly deforms and extends outwards, as slowly stretching free and revealing himself was “**Raeburn 'Calvin' Cave**” in the flesh, a tall, lanky Insomniac with heavy physical mutations in comparison to the lesser altered homeless man, featuring large, darkened patches of dried skin akin to cork, lopsided eyes with the left one nearer his forehead, and five distended arms of different lengths, two on the left, three on the right. Wearing a patchwork bartender’s uniform with a buttoned vest and sewn-on sleeves for all his arms to emerge through, Raeburn stands in front of the undisguised metal surface, revealed as a bolted metal door secretly built alongside the neighboring walls, as artificial light barely glows from the other side.

“Really? You have enough to pay your tab from last time, and the one before that, and the one before that?” Raeburn asks with crossed arms, prompting Ezekiel to partially take off one of his ragged boots and dig underneath his torn soles, putting out a hidden handful of sparse bills, all far from crisp, but not dirtied to the point of being unusable. The mutant bartender instinctually snatches them up, examining them closely before looking back towards the eager vagrant and sighing, “Ezekiel, the fact you’ve somehow evaded turning up dead in a ditch somewhere for so long is honestly a miracle. I don’t know how you do it, and I say this with the bottom of my heart, I don’t want to ever.”

“Yeah, and I assume by the fact you’ve yet to give me back my money…” Ezekiel responds with a crooked smirk across his face, prompting the bartender to roll his eyes and finally step aside to no longer obstruct the metal door behind him. However, before his would-be patron could try and run inside, Raeburn suddenly extends one of his arms into the nearby wall and blocks him with an elongated length of stretched brick and stone from the other side, blocking him from entering right away. “Ah, what the hell now?!”

“You know why. Tell me why.”

“Raeburn, you’re killing me of thirst at this point.”

“Say the thing, Ezekiel, before I change my mind!”

“Gee, I dunno… extremely bold of you to assume I’d remember anything from the last time I was even here. It’s been what, eight weeks and a half? What is that, three whole months?”

“You will *NOT* do the hand thing, anything *CORRELATED* to the hand thing, and anything that *DERIVES* from the hand thing, no matter what, no excuses whatsoever, *UNDERSTOOD*?”

“Ohhhhhh, the hand thing!” Ezekiel remembers upon his elaboration, joyously laughing it off despite his extremely stern demands, before casually waving his aforementioned hand through the air and causing the bartender to reactively lean backwards in response to the mere gesture. “Nah, you have nothing to wonder about, I haven’t been able to do the hand thing since, uhh, I wanna say, the last time I was actually here? Maybe, a little bit afterwards? Yeah, but nothing like that going on recently. Come on and lend me a bit of trust here, I promise that I’ll be on my best behavior. Just get out of this alleyway already. It reeks in here.”

“The alleyway thinks you’re one to talk. Get in before any more of my customers leave while I’m not serving them.” Raeburn loudly scoffs and uncrosses his arms, allowing the brick extension blocking him to retract into the opposite wall, finally allowing an excited Ezekiel passage inside while he reluctantly holds the door open for him, before peering out and scanning both sides of the dark alleyway for any other troublesome figures nearby. Realizing that the coast was clear, the bartender slowly slams the large metal door shut behind him, loudly grinding and creaking as it does so, allowing it to morph back into its brick disguise, acting as if nothing was amiss.

Illuminated with the multicolored glow of all kinds of salvaged lights, including oil lanterns, wired bulbs strung up across the walls, and the occasional wax candle placed atop each of the many wooden tables and stalls scattered throughout “**The Wilted Root**,” more specifically Raeburn’s tavern, formerly public, now private partly thanks to Ezekiel’s tendency to not necessarily attract unwanted attention per se, rather magnetize it all around him, the bartender himself tends to his shelf of products whilst using his three additional arms to clean and wipe down his glass mugs. His customers all enjoy themselves in the far back, throwing darts, playing pool, and having good old laughs, all things that not even a whole apocalypse and a half could take any of that away. Meanwhile, Ezekiel sits alone in one of the far corners of the tavern, wasted out of his mind. Heavy emphasis on that word in particular, “*alone*.”

While the new day coming and going, now nearing afternoon, Raeburn’s ears perk up feeling the sensation of the very walls around him slightly trembling from the vibrations of a repetitive thumping force coming from somewhere, something which he only notices himself, as although the sensation was otherworldly to the average individual, the bartender knows exactly what it is and where it is coming from. Stepping out from behind the counter and entering into a nearby corridor that seemingly leads to nowhere, just more brick wall at the end, Raeburn again drops the illusion with the press of his hand, revealing the metal door, as emerging through with much less contest about their entrance, unlike Ezekiel, were even more customers, five in particular.

“Calvin, hah, I knew I’d find you eventually! To think you were shoved in here of all places!” The leading newcomer cheerfully greets the bartender with a firm handshake and a partial hug, many of their recognizable features concealed within the darkness of the hidden corridor leading into the tavern. “They really did a number on their old place. Sucks, but what can you do, right? How have things been treating you?”

“Nothing has been the same without you old chums here again. I was beginning to think word of mouth would never get around anytime soon, although I think that the new place has been really starting to shape up again, maybe better than before.” Raeburn warmly accepts their greetings, including those of the other four newcomers. “Sit down. Sit down, guys. It’ll be on the house, no doubt for you fellows.”

A distant Ezekiel sharply inhales, stopping himself from nearly drooling onto the wooden table which his face was pressed against, before slowly managing to lift his head upright just enough to be able to bring the mouth of whatever bottle he was suckling from back to his own. Through severely blurred eyes, a small brown mass crawls across the table where he was slouched over, prompting a confused Ezekiel to focus his gaze on whatever it was, seeing it was nothing more than a common cockroach, not doubt abundant in such an environment. Scowling at the sight of it despite being normally unconcerned with its presence, if anything considering it the only friend he currently had, he attempts swatting it away from him, only for it to skitter onto his coat sleeve. Ezekiel tries more aggressive attempts, each time falling due to the insect’s reaction time, if not his own drunken stupor, inevitably hitting the bottom of his beverage onto the table once finally flicking it off him, acting like an angry toddler as he takes another swig and belches afterwards.

Craning his head to the side upon hearing the sounds of distant chatter, Ezekiel observes the newcomers from afar despite his inebriated senses, weakly tilting his head to the side as the whole world around him seems to spin in on itself. Ezekiel stares at his free hand, extending it outwards past his ripped sleeve and watching as it momentarily loses its shape, as his fingers elongate, stretch inwards, fuse and become one, detach off his palm, bounce through the air, and then near instantaneously recombine back into a closed fist. His wrist twists as if devoid of joints, knuckles bending beyond natural flexibility and fingernails shifting across his skin before returning to the back of his fingertips. His flesh darkens and hardens, developing blunt claws and webbings between his fingers, before becoming a mammalian paw with reptilian claws, then into an angular fist as hard and shiny as polished metal.

Ezekiel lets out a few shaky laughs, watching his metallic hand slowly return back to living organic flesh that radiates with rainbow-colored rays of energy like a miniature aurora contained within the palm of his hand, before the light fades and evaporates into a pitch black fog that billows outwards like dark mist, before the shadowy mass resolidifies into a massive cloven hoof, surrounding skin of his wrist growing animalistic fur and pulsing with veins. His chuckles turn into a silent maniacal fit, rocking himself back and forth, lost within his own little world and oblivious to any attention he was bringing to himself with his craziness. One of the newcomers overhear his maniacal laughter, slowly looking over their shoulder and staring at the psychotic vagrant in the corner.

“Is that something you should be concerned with, Raeburn?”

“Hm? Oh brother, I hope not. Just leave that one alone.”

“He’s a recurring problem, huh?”

“Most definitely, but he’s on thin ice right now, so I put him by himself, not that he isn’t usually.”

“That’s certainly interesting.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so.”

“Ah, I think I know that gent there… Isaac, Isaiah, I’m pretty sure? Guess the times haven’t been treating him well. He looks like he’s about to drop dead any minute now.” The sole female of the group suddenly points towards him from afar, her fingers ending with thin bony claws rather than any proper nails, represented through her sharp, raspy voice and long white hair that turned into patchy strings midway down her neck, as if it had been partially burnt off.

“Hah! You know that big pile of shit?! Where’d you first run into him, the sewers? I thought that was a giant rat Raeburn propped up onto the walls up until now!” The lanky man sitting nearby slaps his palm against their booth and blurts out in response, represented through his wiry hair, large hunchback, and disproportionately long hands, so much so that his fingers were wrapped around the width of his bottled drink like they were a pair of fleshy crustacean pincers.

“That’s Ezekiel. He’s a church boy, well… used to be.” The muscular man across from the two corrects them, easily towering over them and represented through his face being nothing but pearly white teeth, two gigantic jaws with his forehead shrouded underneath shaggy brown hair. “Supposedly, he was a nuisance and they were bold enough to tell it to his face, then kicked him onto the curb and left him to die. Poor sucker went looking for God and nearly met him.”

“Ezekiel never told he used to be an altar boy of all things.” Raeburn responds with slight shock in his voice, watching the homeless man repeatedly hitting the bottom of his glass bottle against his table over and over in blinded efforts to try and squash the cockroach that was bothering him whilst in his drunken trance, only to accidentally shatter the bottom of it, prompting him to angrily toss it aside and cause it to smash on the floor. “Where’d you even hear that from, Porter?”

“Fuck if I know, it’s all word of mouth. Fitzroy, you got anything to add?” The all-mouth mutant shrugs and sips his drink while nudging the extremely short and meek man sitting next to him, represented through his loose hanging skin that seemingly gave the illusion he was without a mouth, or any semblance of one on his face, contrasting with the mutated traits of the person sitting next to him. Porter laughs and slaps his hand on Fitzroy’s back, cheerfully exclaiming, “Haha, you always take it like a champ, kid!”

“Hey, quit pushing his buttons before he tells you off!” The long-handed mutant exclaims, met with a brief pause before the two finally break out into hysterics, pounding the sides of their fists on the tables in laughter while Fitzroy crosses his arms and scrunches his face in annoyance. Raeburn glares at them with a bored look, before turning his gaze towards the last remaining member of their newcomer, the very one that gave his greetings, noticing that he was no longer even seated down by them. Looking around in confusion, Raeburn finally catches him in the process of approaching Ezekiel across the bar, gasping in shock and pressing his palm onto the counter, stretching the floorboards beneath his feet and pulling him back towards the bartender.

“I’m serious, Immanuel! Don’t even engage with him! He’s nothing but trouble!” Raeburn repairs and returns the floorboards to their original length and shape through unknown means once he manages to catch the newcomer’s attention, the light better illuminating them finally revealing their black leather clothing and grayish pale skin.

“He looks harmless to me… maybe even defenseless.” Immanuel responds amongst the banter of his allies, before turning back towards Ezekiel, watching him scraping the bottom of his table for anything stuck there. “There’s no fault in meeting new people. I just want to pry him for some information, that’s all. Rickie, hey, watch my spot until then.”

“Yeah, yeah. Just make sure he doesn’t bite you.” Rickie chuckles, while Immanuel turns back around and tries again, this time taking Ezekiel himself by surprise as he drunkenly glances up towards the looming figure over him, a mutant biker with a grotesquely hollow face reminiscent of a skull, featuring eyes deeply sunken from within their sockets, nose pushed up and receded back to the point it was nearly flat against his face, and a rectangular metal plate over his chin like a partially prosthetic jaw.

“Whadda… you looking at? Something on my face? Something on your face?” Ezekiel responds between occasional belches, his eyes glazed over and his black undershirt notably stained from alcohol he had spilled onto himself, although an unfazed Immanuel only widely smiles and asks, “You must be Ezekiel, right? Life’s got you feeling pretty down right now, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t think therapists go to taverns.” Ezekiel rubs dribble off his face with his sleeve, although Immanuel seemingly only responds by sitting down in his booth, not necessarily beside, but fairly close to Ezekiel himself, the latter of which only responding to the unexpected act with a look of slack-jawed confusion. In the distance, Raeburn clenches his temples in dread everything will go awry any moment now, while Rickie and Porter look on in fascinated anticipation.

“Ezekiel… Ezekiel… Ezekiel… *Ezekiel Elsegood*, right? That’s you?”

“Whatever… I mean… yeah? You actually know that?”

“Not necessarily, more so, I know people who know that, and they relayed it to me.”

“Why would they care? What would anyone care about ME of all people?”

“Hey, hey, I thought the same thing too! It’s just, recently, I’ve been doing some digging on some unrelated events that under normal circumstances, wouldn’t be anyone’s business, and it’s just your name came up somewhere interesting, that being first name and last name. There, got your elaboration? You wouldn’t mind to elaborate yourself, would you?”

“…What the fuck are you talking about? Who are you?!”

“The name’s Immanuel! Immanuel Baines. They call me ‘I.M. Marrow’ for short. I work up at the scrapyards in northern Yellowcake so that name may not ring any bells, but-”

“Yeah, yeah, I get that part, buddy. You are Immanuel, I am Ezekiel, whatever, that’s our names. Just ask me your stupid fucking questions if it means you leave me alone.”

“Well, for starters, I want you to let me know if the place in this photo right here seems familiar.” Immanuel opens his leather jacket and reaches inside, pulling out an extremely old instant film, heavily stained and seemingly suffering from notable burn damage that the contests of which Ezekiel closely scrutinizes, before confidently saying, “Can’t say that it does. What is that even supposed to be?”

“I’ll put this aside for now, but do tell me if anything comes to mind. Now, what about this here?” Immanuel this time pulls out and places down an oblong piece of corroded metal so damaged  that whatever purpose it served was unknown, which Ezekiel analyzes even more briefly and aggressively exclaims, “Buddy, you pulled this out the fucking scrapyards! It’s a piece of junk, that’s what this is! You’re just wasting my time, get out of my booth before I make a scene!”

“Now, now, I saved the best for last!” Immanuel snatches back the strange piece of scrap metal, only then finally pulling out something of genuine interest, as gently laying it out on the stained wooden table before Ezekiel, was an unmarked journal planner, worn to the point its pages had visibly yellowed on the sides and its cover was completely unreadable. His anger dissipating in favor of anxious interest, Ezekiel picks up the planner and carefully opens its pages, seeing that although the writing inside was faded, it wasn’t illegible by any means. Slowly flipping through it, Ezekiel focuses his gaze more and more, seemingly recognizing some of the writings, although upon reaching a particular page, seals it shut without any hesitation. “So, what do you think?”

“You wouldn’t to know where *THIS* came from, would you?” Ezekiel stares up from the cover of the planner, although Immanuel only smiles, before exhaling through his nostrils and chuckling under his breath. Ezekiel further focuses his gaze, his pupils almost morphing inside his irises, as he lowers one of his hands under the booth and presses it firmly against the bottom side, so much so that it seemingly begins taking on its wooden preporties, if not outright fuses with it altogether. Immanuel clicks his teeth and wags his finger in disproval of any drastic measures he might pull, again slowly reaching into his jacket and telling him, “You’re alone. That’s you right now. There isn’t anymore of you, is there now?”

Ezekiel aggressively furrows his brow and scowls, his irises taking on a warped oblong shape, as their color bleeds with one another and transforms the whites of his eyes into a mixed red and blue, like paint splatter, although before anything escalates any further, an enormous hand suddenly grasps and jostles Immanuel by the shoulder, courtesy of “**Ashmore**,” one of the Wilted Root’s meatheaded bodyguards, who points towards the smashed bottle on the ground Ezekiel had drunkenly thrown earlier, now a mess of glass shards and liquor on the floorboards.

“Hey, nostrils, did you make this mess?”

“Watch the jacket, Ashmore! I just had this ironed out!”

“That didn’t answer my question! *DID* you *MAKE* this *MESS?!*”

“Of course not, I would’ve cleaned it up! I was in the middle of talking with… with…!”

Immanuel twists back around, seeing that Ezekiel was nowhere to be seen, with the same being said for the strange planner he had left on the table for him to read. In his brief lapse of memory where the latter had gone, the table itself creaks, and as Ashmore releases Immanuel and tries flipping it over, the table instead lifts up and slams into the two of them, briefly pinning Ashmore against the nearby wall and knocking the latter out of his chair and onto the ground. As the rest of his allies leap out of their chair at the first sign of danger, Ezekiel slams his free hand against a worn electrical outlet within his reach, releasing a surge of electrical energy that shorts out the lights and casts almost the entire bar in darkness. A horrified Raeburn ducks for cover, hearing the sounds of the scuffle outside, before a dazed Ashmore was slammed against the counter he was shielding himself behind.

“*YOU PROMISED NOT TO DO THE HAND THING, EZEKIEL, YOU PROMISED!!!*” Raeburn cries out in dismay while the two parties break into a full-blown barfight. Immanuel digs into his jacket and pulls out an ivory handled pocket knife, which he immediately attempts burying into Ezekiel’s arm, who instead blocks it with his freed hand, still made out of wood. Ezekiel grabs onto the nearby wall and in moments, his very flesh takes on the preporties of hardened clay, prompting him to swing back and punch him square in his metal chin with enough force to be flung backwards like a ragdoll. Coming out of nowhere, Rickie smashes a bottle over his head, before Porter snatches him from behind and traps him within a headlock.

“RICKIE! FITZROY! THOMASINA! BACK ME UP HERE!” Porter struggles holding Ezekiel still, before the latter’s hand reverts to flesh and blood, releasing a strong electrical jolt that zaps him off him. Rickie engages him, broken bottle still in hand, although Ezekiel grabs him by the wrist and threatens crushing his hand, prompting him to wince in pain and drop his weapon, before kicking him aside. Several gunshots ring out, the meek Fitzroy sending guns ablaze, although they do little to pierce his brick armor. Ezekiel shields the book under his equally protected coat and tries fleeing, only for the floorboards beneath him to give way, as the wood inexplicably shred apart and form into a large set of jaws, clamping down on his armored shin and pinning him in place. Helping Porter up, Thomasina lifts his hand and fires her elongated claws like bullets, stabbing Ezekiel’s unarmored hand and keeping him at bay in his frantic effort to free himself.

“You’ll go right ahead and lend me that book there if you know what’s good for you, church boy!” Immanuel menacingly approaches the pinned Ezekiel, lifting his pale fist up and extending large bony spikes from his knuckles. Ezekiel ignores his demands and punches the floor around him, shattering the makeshift jaws and freeing himself, before extending his arm back and releasing a concentrated electrical blast that pushes Immanuel backwards, who narrowly blocks it using elongated bone plating extended over his forearm. Thomasina retaliates with more nail bullets, only to be caught by the back of the neck by “**Marlowe**,” another one of Raeburn’s bodyguards, A recovered Ashmore snatches up Porter, prompting Fitzroy to point his gun into his face, while “**Lake**,” the third bodyguard, pins Rickie against the ground and grabs Immanuel by his collar. Raeburn rises up behind the bar counter upon realizing everything was at a standstill.

“Okay, okay, instead of killing each other as soon as possible, why we all just take a brief pause and get the root of the problem here? Can’t we all use our words, whatever happened to having peaceful discussions? Ashmore, Marlowe, Lake, are you with me? Fitzroy, for the love of all that is holy, that means to put the gun away!” Raeburn tries reasoning with the two parties, the lights slowly flickering back on as he does so, while the mouthless mutant angrily glares back at him and slowly puts it back in the holster on his hip. Ezekiel slowly discards his armor and carefully plucks the nails embedded in his hand, although his eyes retained their unnatural coloration.

“I wasn’t the one who started this! It’s the someone here who has something he really wants to hide, figuratively and physically!” Immanuel sneers, prompting Ezekiel to defensively snarl his teeth like a wild animal, revealing they were too discolored and misshaped into lengthened fangs. “Why would anyone supposedly care about Ezekiel Elsegood, he says, I’m just some useless drifter who wants to sleep and drink all my whole life! You really expected to fool me with that shit even after I caught you?! You’d be surprised how much one person would learn if they just knew which people to ask!”

Ezekiel immediately kneels over and attempts reabsorbing matter from the brick walls, only for them to crack apart and reshape themselves into a set of sharpened teeth that nearly bite down on his fingers, warding him off as Immanuel and Raeburn’s bodyguards step closer towards the cornered vagrant. Still wrapped in Ashmore’s clutches, Porter clenches his teeth, fully prepared to spawn more jaws should he need to do so, while Rickie impatiently sighs in boredom from his current position on the floor.

“Let me cut you some slack though, assuming this might not be worth all the trouble.” Immanuel finally slips from Lake’s fingers, taking on his friendlier tone like before as he slowly retracts his bony knuckles and holds out his hand, before pointing towards the visible portion of Ezekiel’s coat he had tucked the journal planner inside. “Just slide me back that book and we’ll go our separate ways. We’ll pretend that this never even happened, how does that sound?”

Ezekiel only stares intensely back at him, staring with eyes unlike the saddened homeless man that had begged the bartender to be let inside when he had nowhere else to go, his expression completely and utterly malicious, oozing with hate and rage, so far removed from human intent. He more resembles a creature, with eyes like bleeding ink seeping through old paper pages, but even then, in his moment of animosity and savagery, his pupils slowly regain their circular shape while he reaches into his coat and pulls out the planner. With his opposite hand, Ezekiel points towards the hidden corridor behind him, before eyeing Raeburn of all people there.

Raeburn nervously shakes, before wiping the sweat from his brow and regaining his composure enough to place his hand against a nearby wall, sending out wavy ripples throughout the brick, as he operates the hidden corridor where Ezekiel stands in front of, dispelling the illusionary wall and opening the metal door using his structural modification powers. Although his bodyguards were the ones to ensure and maintain integrity with their unique abilities presumably gifted by their mutations, Ashmore with his enhanced perception over room layouts, aiding in both construction and decoration, Marlowe with his abandoned location affinity, making sure that the new location would be hidden from the public eye, and Lake with his floor and ceiling reversal, preventing instability, such as falling debris, it was Raeburn responsible for controlling the ins and outs of the very location they stand inside of.

“*I’m trapped in a ceaseless cycle, because no matter the distances and lengths I go, no matter how many bones I break trying to fight my way through it, no matter how worthless I tell myself, thinking I don’t deserve this position, in the end, when I turn back around, hoping that sunlight finally shines upon me, you’ll still be there, hanging onto me like I’m a slab of meat and you’re the hooks keeping me locked inside this eternal freezer.*”

“*You consider me special for one and only one reason, and it’s something that I’d move heaven and earth to take back. I know what you want from me, I know exactly what they want from me, it’s been the reason why I’ve stayed hidden in the trash and shadows, but you see, I’ve been manipulated and abused before. I know the signs. They were etched into my very bones.*”

“*This power I hold, I will waste it all, I take it all to the grave so that it rightfully dies with me too. None of you will ever control me anymore, none of you will ever see me again, and none of you will find where I will rest in peace. You have ten minutes to disappear too. We’ll be burning smoke over the horizon, you and I.*”

Ezekiel’s eyes suddenly recede back into his skull and mutate into several burning hot S-shaped orifices, like the front of an old-fashioned furnace, before violently expelling out vast quantities of blackened smoke from his face, enough to instantly blanket the air around him and send anyone nearby into a choking fit, momentarily incapacitating Raeburn and his bodyguards, while Immanuel shields his mouth with the back of his wrist and plows through the smoke, assuming that Ezekiel was making a break for it without giving up the planner, only to see that he had indeed through the open door, but the book was placed where he once stood still. As the smoke clears with the aid of Raeburn creating several holes to air out, Immanuel slides it back inside his leather jacket.

“You know how much it pains me how much inconvenience I didn’t mean to put you through. You were right to begin with, Raeburn, he wasn’t worth the effort. Thanks for the drinks. Take this for the troubles.” Immanuel approaches Raeburn, regaining his relaxed demeanor and reaching into his leather wallet, before pulling out a small handful of bills and placing them onto his counter. “Thomasina! Rickie! Porter! Fitzroy! Let’s go and get out of here while the getting is still good!”

“There’s a hole in my floor, and I think my electrical lights are ruined beyond use, but thanks?” An exhausted Raeburn hesitantly accepts the money while Immanuel calls upon the rest of his accomplices to take their leave before their mere presence there causes even more trouble than they already have. With the tavern now completely emptied out and in need of repairs, Marlowe walks by and tries patting Raeburn on the shoulder as a clumsy effort to comfort him, the latter only dropping and slamming his head against the counter in frustration. “I hate this job.”

The “**Skeleton Crew**” was their name together.

“**Immanuel ‘I.M. Marrow’ Baines**,” their leader.

“**Thomasina ‘Tomahawk’ Hawkings**,” their brains.

“**Rickie ‘Ribeye’ Eikenboom**,” their wild card.

“**Porter ‘Porterhouse’ Von Grimmelshausen**,” their muscle.

“**Fitzroy ‘Filet Mignon’ Milburn-Gagnon**,” their munitions expert.

Although they exist as only one of Yellowcake’s many criminal gangs, dozens if hundreds united with one another, all for different reasons and intentions, but for the collective idea of combining their teamwork and mutant powers in order to gain leverage over the city piecemeal at a time, the Skeleton Crew represents the rarity of aimlessness that distinctly separated them from the rest of the crowd. They seek no goals in particular, outside the essentials of causing mayhem wherever they seemed to go, intimidating small businesses, and kept to themselves within the remains of an abandoned restaurant in the northern regions of Yellowcake.

Blazing down through sandy roads and winding pathways atop makeshift motorcycles cobbled together from metal, old and new, rusted and polished, the Skeleton Crew finds himself back at their “base of operations,” at least that’s what they would call it, when it serves more so as a rest stop for them to regularly lay low and avoid the prying eyes of “**The YPD**,” the Yellowcake Police Department, at least that’s what they would call it. Parking their bikes and kicking their way into their rundown headquarters, a steakhouse full of toppled tables and visible signs of rot growing on every wall one could see, its condition so poor that it made the Wilted Root look like luxury, Fitzroy flips the closest light switch, causing all but a few bulbs to flicker on.

“What do you say, boss? Was that whole shit show really not worth the effort like you told that barkeeper back there? It was just your average Monday afternoon, am I right?” Rickie mockingly asks his exasperated leader, who refuses giving him any verbal answer, prompting the former to stop away in frustration and sit down in one of the booths, propping his legs up on the table and crossing his arms. “I knew it! I knew it! He didn’t even correct me which day it was! I thought you were going to treat us and nothing else, but of course not, it always has to be work and no play! I couldn’t give less of a shit about that fucking nasty hobo and whatever his deal was, why’d you have to go out of your way to make his business yours too?!”

“Don’t run your lips like that at Immanuel!” Thomasina scolds Rickie for telling off their respected leader, especially in his moment of defeat, although Rickie only bares his teeth and holds out his elongated middle finger at her. A single claw cracks the glass window beside him, causing Rickie to jump in fear, as Thomasina instantly regrows her fired claw and prepares shooting off another one if it means the latter finally keeps his mouth shut. Porter helps send her message whilst idling nearby, running his fingers across his face full of teeth, signaling him to zip his lips for once. Immanuel ignores their banter at the suggestion of Fitzroy, who nudges him to hand over the miscellaneous contents of his jacket for safekeeping inside the kitchen.

“Incredible how you’re the least argumentative one here, Fitzroy. I’ll hold onto everything else, see if I can get more answers with them when it’s bright outside, but this one, put it in the safe.” Immanuel hands him only the journal planner, with Fitzroy snatching it after taking offense to the first statement, walking away, hopping over the restaurant counter, and entering the kitchen, completely hollowed out besides several cooking equipment and machinery stil lying around. Old furniture and weathered posters line the walls, whatever the group has salvaged from the nearby dumps, while dented pots and pans hang from the ceiling, less like actual decoration and more like an effort to turn their humble abode into a modern piece of art.

Fitzroy whistles through his hanging mouth flaps, placing onto the journal planner onto the top of the large metal kitchen counter that if anything, serves less as little more as a coffee table, while nearly avoiding hitting his head on the stained grease hood hanging in the middle of the room, and eventually turning on one of the ovens despite nothing being inside for it to cook, instead serving as a rudimentary heater that provided warmth for them. The light above him prominently flickers, with Fitzroy staring up towards it in concern that however they were getting power into a completely abandoned building might be starting to fail on them, although he merely brushes it off for now and resumes business as usual.

Pushing one of the torn couches aside and reaching behind it, Fitzroy slowly drags out a heavy safe, the one that Immanuel had instructed him to put the planner inside of, still whistling while he gets onto his knees and slowly inputs the combination. The old journal planner lying on the table slightly shifts in place, as if being blown by the wind despite being in an enclosed space that was moderately warm at best, before its pages silently flip open, creasing and contorting like they were taking on a mind of their own. As the coiling paper bends and straightens like sentient origami, a single hand takes shape, then an entire arm as the hand clutches onto the side of the table, letting the rest of the limb push itself upwards. Its cardboard cover becomes fleshier and lumpier, eventually sprouting a pair of eyes that stare towards the oblivious Fitzroy.

Finally opening the safe with gusto, Fitzroy lifts himself up and reaches for the book, only for his hand to feel nothing where it once was, despite being the one who placed it there. Whipping his head around and fully standing back up, he looks around in his fit of denial, before immediately flipping the entire table in a vain effort to see if it had fallen anywhere, scattering metal utensils and kitchen supplies onto the tiled ground, but it was nowhere to be seen, even looking after high and low. Fitzroy staggers backwards in visible shock, reaching for his hip, as Porter calls out upon hearing the noise, “What’s going on over there, kid?”

Fitzroy holds the side of his head in panic, although eases with reaching the reasonable idea that he had merely misplaced it in his entrance. Before the others come in and see the mess he had unintentionally made in, Fitzroy slowly lifts the table back upright and kneels down to scoop up the fallen cutlery and everything else that was scattered about on top of it before, a spoon, a fork, a knife, a wallet, or a wallet, or no, wait, a wallet, a leather wallet? Which one of them was dense enough to leave their cold hard cash out in the open despite fully knowing that Rickie was notorious for his sticky fingers? Fitzroy stares at it for only a moment, the black leather wallet, black just like their leader’s jacket. Of course, that means it belongs to Immanuel. That was the thing he had handed to Fitzroy for safekeeping, it wasn’t the book like he had suggested him.

Fitzroy sighs in relief, delicately picking up the wallet, feeling clumsy as usual. Putting money inside the safe, that makes so sense, that’s common sense in fact, no wonder his boss would want him to put it there. He stands back up and stares at it, curious just how much Immanuel really had in there, even knowing that it was none of his business, but still feeling that itch of curiosity, especially after Immanuel had tended to private matters between him and that hobo. What was his name again, Elijah? Ellis? Guess it doesn’t matter now. It wouldn’t hurt to check, it’s not like he’s going to swipe some bills out, he didn’t have that sleight of hand in him.

Hand.

A hand comes out of the wallet.

Fitzroy staggers back. A whole arm.

“Oooooooh, Fitzroy’s probably breaking all your shit for you making fun of him at the bar.” Rickie playfully prods the concerned Porter upon hearing the sounds of clatter within the kitchen, while Immanuel and Thomasina stare towards the source of noise in confusion. As seconds pass by without any supplementary noises from back there, especially with Fitzroy knocking on the wall or hitting a pot or pan to ensure he was okay, by the time anyone decides making a move and checking for themselves, a worrisome Fitzroy steps out from behind the counter.

“What’s with all the noises back there? You didn’t fall and hit your head or anything, did you?” Thomasina asks, to which an unaware Fitzroy lifts his shoulders and shrugs in response, seemingly acting unbothered with whatever happened while he had stepped out of the dining room, despite everyone’s genuine concern if he had hurt himself, bumped into and knocked something over, or something of the like. “Then what DID happen, what was all the clatter?”

“You’re talking to a brick wall, Thomasina. He can’t talk.” Rickie comments with no regards for anyone else’s feelings despite his own shocked state, although before she snaps back at him, Immanuel cuts them off and anxiously asks him, “Did you tell what I tell you to do? The safe?”

Fitzroy nods.

“The planner inside the safe?”

Fitzroy nods again.

“Nothing I should be concerned about?”

Fitzroy nods once again.

“Of course, once again, each of you assume our newest recruit is too incompetent to complete even the simplest of tasks, anticipating that he’ll make a mistake at the drop of a dime because you expect so little of him. Any bump, any twitch, any awkward blink of the eye, you think he’s going to pull out that piece on his hip and-”

Fitzroy empties his magazine into the side of Immanuel’s head.

Finally morphing out of his disguise between each muzzle flash whilst their leader drops like a sack of potatoes, the remaining members of the Skeleton Crew find themselves confronted by the filthy vagrant himself, his mismatched eyes bulging wildly from their sockets like they were multicolored boils about to burst, and his face covered with shimmering purple flesh, resembling a defrosted steak damaged by freezer burn to the point it hardly even resembled raw meat anymore. Ezekiel drops the firearm and walks over Immanuel as if he were simply part of the floor towards the his horrified accomplices.

Thomasina immediately engages him without any hesitation, firing off her sharpened nails, but each one phases through him as if each impact was rendered into gas, causing freezing mist to pour from the holes. An enraged Porter smacks his hands together, causing two broken tables to be forcefully pulled towards one another, clamping shut on his adversary like an improvised mouth, although Ezekiel’s midsection merely bursts into water that splashes onto the stained carpet, again not impeding him, before his disembodied torso raises his hands and launches jets of ice that launch Porter back with enough force to smash against one of the few unbroken windows. Ezekiel melds his halves back together while Thomasina slashes with her claws,  the former of which instinctually morphing and deforming into water to dodge her blows, before grabbing her by the face and blinding her under a layer of ice.

“NOBODY FUCKS WITH THE SKELETON CREW!” Rickie kicks off the table beside him, before bludgeoning Ezekiel with one of the nearby chairs, hitting him again and again before he finally resists and knocks Rickie back with inhuman strength, who smashes his back against the wall, which lets out a painful click that oddly enough seems to straighten out his hunchback, before quickly recovering when Ezekiel starts advancing towards him. “One click!”

Ezekiel hysterically screams in anger, firing beams of liquid ice from his eyes in an effort to try and immobilize him, although Rickie continuously bobs and weaves around his cryogenic blasts, his spine again seeming to click as his posture partially corrects itself. A glowing streak of energy begins radiating down his back in the shape of his curved spine. “Two clicks!”

Ezekiel spawns several large ice spikes out of the walls of the soaked floor to cut off his routes, before suddenly rendering his arms into mist and launching them outwards to finally grab Rickie by the throat, although by the time he pulls them back towards him, Rickie’s spine fully corrects itself as the streak of energy explodes outwards. “*THREE CLICKS*!”

Ezekiel’s bulging eyes widen as the accumulated damage finally reflects back and hits him like a freight train, knocking him with such force he was instantly impaled straight through the massive length of sharpened bone held up from behind him, going straight through his solar plexus. His density shifting stops functioning and fully renders him corporeal again, as Ezekiel gurgles and chokes, clutching at it in writhing pain while his head significantly distorts in shape. With parts of his head hardened into patches of solid bone, Immanuel sneers as the crumpled bullets that failed breaking through his skull underneath fall onto the ground beside him.

“They were willing to let in on the tidbit about your condition, that you were hardly clinging onto your own skin, but I didn’t anticipate you were already this far gone!” Immanuel calls out, before squirming veins and oozing flesh suddenly begin crawling from the gaping hole in his torso and across both sides of the bone spear, prompting him to knock the impaled vagrant down onto the tiled floor. Ezekiel’s head grotesquely stretches around and twists towards him, as his distended jaws scream bloody murder back up at him while his limbs begin twitching and regaining motion. In one fluid motion, Immanuel coats his entire body in hardened bone armor and sprouts several bone spikes from the bottom of his boot, which he uses to stomp Ezekiel’s face against the floor,

“GIVE ME BACK THAT BOOK OR SO HELP ME!” Immanuel repeatedly stomps, long enough to keep him at bay before he reaches down, grabs the back of his coat, and violently rips it apart, causing the aforementioned journal planner, the one Ezekiel never returned, but rather imitated as to infiltrate and assassinate them, to fall and slide out onto the tiled floor. With the remaining members of the Skeleton Crew in a mad dash to reclaim it, Ezekiel only screeches louder as his undershirt ruptures from the force of massive bat-like wings, followed by several tentacled limbs, bursting through, while simultaneously pushing him off the floor and knocking Immanuel off him. Singlehandedly knocking the three grunts all aside with one heavy swipe, he snatches it up for himself and finally removes the bone spike driven through his torso through expanding the size of his hole, letting it fall out before swollen arteries and pulsing meat seal it back shut.

“***THE BOOK DOES NOT BELONG TO YOU.***” Ezekiel speaks through garbled drones, before suddenly shedding his disfigured skin and revealing his underlying flesh beneath sticky layers of blackened mucus, colored a severely blemished dark purple with luminescent red and blue veins creeping across his mostly exposed musculature. His malformed skull elongates upwards and bursts through his false face like it was a rubber mask, molting off his rapidly graying hair and revealing an outgrown crown of misplaced teeth atop his scalp. Ezekiel retracts his wings and tentacles back into the stretched and scorched flesh of his torso, revealing his emaciated form, before wrapping strands of flesh around the journal planner as he absorbs and encases it in his biomass. “***IT DOES NOT BELONG TO ANYONE.***”

“I fucking knew that he was even more of an ugly bitch underneath there!” Rickie taunts Ezekiel, prompting him to further elongate his neck towards him, his deformed jawbone slowly unhinging and splitting all the way up to his cheekbones like a snake as he roars, only to suddenly stagger upon being riddled with gunfire, as an alive Fitzroy emerges from the kitchen, his face bloodied from his brief incapacitation but his hands packing heat as he manages wounding Ezekiel’s right shoulder and left side. Ezekiel screeches as his body fully dissipates into freezing mist that flees out one of the broken restaurant windows with the clear intent of running for the hills. Immanuel switches out of his protective bone armor and points in the direction after him, exclaiming, “*THOMASINA! RICKIE! PORTER! FITZROY! LET’S MOVE! DON’T LET HIM TAKE THE BOOK!*”

His legs transformed into mammalian legs covered with coarse fur and ending with large bladed claws for its toes, significantly bolstering his running speeds, the mutated Ezekiel sprints through the labyrinthine scrapyards of northern Yellowcake after his botched assassination, followed in hot pursuit by the Skeleton Crew on their motorcycles. Dodging and leaping through the rusted obelisks of sunburnt scrap tangled and fused together through their sheer abundancy, becoming massive metal pillars that reach as high as dozens of meters, Ezekiel briefly catches sight of one of them nearing him from the side through one of the many paths past the obelisks, prompting him to morph his hands into sharpened feline claws and leap onto one of the pillars, giving him enough height to turn around and charge his hand back, before releasing a crescent shaped blast of energy from his claws that partially shreds one of the scrapheap mountains and causes a cascade of wreckage that finally draws them once the wreckage clean.

Ezekiel growls before clenching his opposite hand and leaping off the scrap obelisk, releasing another energized slash that propels him further towards him, his claws at the ready. Immanuel speeds in and coats his arm within hard bone, withstanding the brute force before repelling him with claws of his own. Launching energized slashes at the ground to kick up dust and separate them, Ezekiel begins firing energized slashes at the nearby pillars, sending debris crashing down upon them to bury them alive, although Porter blindly drives right towards him through the dust cloud. Although his adversary tries slashing him from afar, Porter leaps off his bike and flips it, sending it crashing into Ezekiel and pinning him against one of the pillars. Unable to free himself in time, Thomasina punctures its gas tank with her claw bullets, before Fitzroy fires at will, consuming Ezekiel within a miniature explosion that topples the entire pillar. Fitzroy extends out his other hand and forms an odd semi-translucent barrier from his wrist that shields his accomplices.

Surrounded with burning smoke and flames, a single unharmed car tire rolls out of the debris, suspiciously rolling perfectly towards them, prompting Fitzroy to lower his shield and shoot at it, causing Ezekiel to drop his disguise and charge him with murine quills and claws, only for a fully armored Immanuel to sucker punch him through the smoke. Ezekiel slightly staggers and brushes aside the visible imprint of Immanuel’s fist left in the side of his face, before his swollen eyes focus their gaze, as within the air around him, appears a multitude of large glowing disembodied hands around him, individually closing each of them into fists. Striking at lightning-fast speeds, Ezekiel barrages with Immanuel with everything he has, more than enough to crack his armor. Thomasina fires her claws at him, although Ezekiel redirects them away with one of the hands, before raising it and slamming it down, instantly crushing her bike and throwing him back.

Fitzroy again opens fire, although not doing much against the hands, before forming another shield from the cartilage of his wrist to block their responding blows against him, while Porter transforms the ground beneath them into many rusty metal jaws, repeatedly clamping and biting in an effort to swallow any of the hands whole, although Ezekiel simply smacks several of the magical hands against the ground, creating a shockwave that stuns Porter long enough for him to be backhanded aside. Fitzroy tries firing past the hands to hit his foe, although one of the hands snatches him up from behind, lifting him up in the air before slamming him down. Rickie speeds in, as if purposefully wanting to be struck down too, which upon doing so, he leaps off his bike and evades being knocked down in the process, beginning to accumulate the damage of the blow as he rushes Ezekiel and charges the energy down his straightened spine.

“One click! Two clicks! THREE CLICKS! *TAKE THIS,* *YOU SON OF A-*”

Ezekiel momentarily concentrates, before slamming two of the floating hands against Rickie like he was swatting a mosquito, completely disrupting his damage accumulation and stopping him dead in his tracks, leaving him to helplessly stagger around and finally collapse onto the ground. Ezekiel observes his surroundings, seeing that the Skeleton Crew were unable to get back up, most of them not even conscious with the exception of a weakened Immanuel covered within his partially shattered armor, prompting his adversary to slowly approach him.

“Wait... I give... I give!”

His foe wordlessly clenches shut the hand floating above him, shaping it into a fist and lifting it higher and higher into the air with the preparation to squash Immanuel into a red stain against the sunburnt metal beneath him. Immanuel looks up past his bruised eyes and bloodied face, staring not at his impeding cause of death, but instead at the emotionless husk on the verge of conducting it himself. His foe remains in place, completely unresponsive as his grip briefly hesitates and slightly loosens. Swinging the disembodied hand downwards and aggressively striking the ground with all his might, the ensuing shockwave regaining consciousness to the rest of Immanuel’s crew, although not out of the death of their leader, but because Ezekiel missed and struck the ground next to his head.

The mutated homeless man staggers backwards and convulses, writhing in pain before lifting his head upwards and screaming towards the skies, before lowering his head back down and shaking it side to side uncontrollably. All of the disembodied hands dissipate altogether, as Ezekiel nearly falls onto his knees, grabbing at his temples and thrashing about in hysterics, although whatever tongues he speaks in were entirely incoherent and nonsensical. Black fluid leaks from the edges of his eye sockets like darkened tears as his eyes redden and blister, before out of nowhere, he suddenly claws and digs into the flesh of his chest, mutilating himself in order to pull free the old journal planner inside and toss it at the feet of Immanuel, who only looks on in horror.

“***I CAN’T GO BACK. I’M NOT GOING BACK. I CAN'T GO BACK.***”

“What the *FUCK* even are you?!”

“***IF ONLY YOU FINISHED WITH YOUR QUESTIONS, YOU’D KNOW.***”

“I’d know *WHAT?* Are you even human?!”

“***IT WAS IN ME ONCE. IT’S NOT ANYMORE. I CAN’T BE WHAT THEY MADE ME.***”

“Christ almighty, get a hold of yourself, you fucking *WRECK!*”

Ezekiel seizes up, slowly lowering his arms as he unexpectedly regains his bearings.

“***SUCH A DECISION, THAT COMES FROM THE HEART.***”

Ezekiel suddenly begins ascending upwards with the aid of another hand lifting him up.

“***A SHAME MY MIND HAS BEEN DEAF FOR THE LONGEST TIME.***”

Ezekiel rises up higher and higher, before eventually disappearing through the clouds of smoke.

Immanuel and the rest of his recovering crew stare upwards where he had vanished through the clouds of smog, leaving them behind in the middle of their temporary battlefield within the vast sprawling scrapyards. Sluggishly getting back up onto his feet with the help of Thomasina and Fitzroy, Immanuel only stares where his adversary had disappeared off to, completely gone without a trace, before he slowly averts his gaze towards the weathered journal planner now held within his hands, despite not even feeling the instinct to pick it back up. It hadn’t even occurred to him then that he hadn’t even read its contents for himself, making it only more confusing why it was treated as this evil entity.

Immanuel slowly pries open the cover and stares at the first page.

None of the text was in English, let alone any recognizable language.

Dusting his many hands off after having dropped off several trash bags in the dumpster outside the alleyway, Raeburn slowly heads back without wasting another second that any prying eyes were watching him, moving deeper and deeper through the darkness. Finally locating the metal door that he had temporarily left out of, Raeburn suddenly pauses before even making all the way back inside, swearing that he just heard an odd noise, almost like slight scraping, within his earshot, causing him to recede backwards and glance around in confusion.

“Hello?”

Raeburn calls out, awaiting any response in case it was someone else, although getting none in particular only makes him suspicious as he releases the side of the metal door and briefly looks around the alleyway, only then hearing the scraping again, this time for sure that it was coming from deeper towards the darkness, where the alleyway continues onwards.

“Who’s there?”

Raeburn hesitantly steps closer, most definitely hearing the scraping sound again, remaining silent in hopes of trying to pinpoint its exact origin, before suddenly leaping backwards and screaming out in shock upon catching glimpse of the emaciated silhouette propped up against the wall only a few feet away from him. Raeburn remains stunned in place, only staring at it.

“GOOD LORD, YOU SCARED ME!”

The emaciated silhouette shuffles slightly, again causing the scraping noise, as a familiar pair of mismatched glowing eyes peer from the darkness, shakily staring towards the mutant bartender himself and causing him to cautiously lower his guard upon slowly realizing who they belonged to.

“…Are you who I think you are?”

The emaciated silhouette again shuffles slightly, although does not make any verbal response. From what extremely little can be seen of him, he was still shirtless and completely devoid of his skin, not much time having passed since he fled from the Skeleton Crew.

“You look horrendous. I thought you were a dead body for a second.”

The emaciated silhouette again shuffles slightly, as if fidgeting in place, although again remains completely dead silent. Raeburn slowly takes a single step towards him, noticing his slouched posture and unblinking gaze from the darkness.

“This seems familiar, doesn’t it? Only difference was that you were actually almost dead.”

The emaciated silhouette again shuffles slightly. Nothing.

“Do you want something to drink?”

The emaciated silhouette again shuffles slightly. Nothing.

“Do you need somewhere to stay?”

The emaciated silhouette again shuffles slightly. Nothing.

Raeburn sighs and slouches his shoulders.

“Do you need a shoulder to cry on?”

The emaciated silhouette again shuffles slightly, then weakly rises.

“Same old, same old. Come on. Just mind the hole in the floorboards.”

Raeburn guides Ezekiel inside the tavern despite their previous encounter not ending as well as it was promised to, before instinctually glancing back and forth for anyone else in the alleyway, then finally slamming the metal door shut, before it again takes on the false disguise of a brick wall.

## Noteworthy Events

### Major Events

* Ezekiel Elsegood, Raeburn Cave, and the members of the Skeleton Crew all make their first appearances.
* L'Goon, Pole Mancer, Cement Shoes, Entropic Punch, Shady Nasty, Ringleader, Matterialize, Juul Thief, 10rec, Indense, Brawnworm, RebelLion, and Whalping Hand all make their debuts, although only as partial manifestations through mysterious shapeshifting powers that seem different from the unique abilities of the mutant populace.
	+ Ezekiel is revealed to be an extremely disfigured Insomniac that has been supposedly been modified and experimented on through unknown means, possibly correlating to the origins of his powers and those who gifted Immanuel the information about him.
* Yellowcake's lore is established, including the Lead Block, a facility full of scientific minds responsible for providing power to the city and helping eliminate pollution, the city council, who has been leaning towards innovation since the past election, and the YPD, their extremely observant police department.
* The Insomniacs are established, such as how they earned their nickname from their nocturnal behavior, which has caused a growing social gap between them and the lesser mutated Early Birds, and how each of them seemingly possesses unique powers, ranging from creating and modifying structures, to controlling the growth rate of bones.
* Ezekiel meets Immanuel, who interrogates him for information about his past, prompting Ezekiel to try and kill him and the rest of his crew over an old journal planner that he temporarily steals, but returns with vague demands to restart the "ceaseless cycle" he is trapped in.
	+ Immanuel reveals his possession of a mysterious photograph and metal fragment that supposedly relates to Ezekiel's past, although he has no memory of either of them nor any clues that they may be about.

### Minor Events

* Ashmore, Marlowe, and Lake, Raeburn's bodyguards, make their first appearances.
* Ezekiel's relationship with Raeburn, a bartender who has repeatedly taken him in despite his severe negligence and troublesome behavior, becomes strained, although the latter reluctantly mends it finding a traumatized Ezekiel after his fight with the Skeleton Crew.

## Characters

### Protagonists

* Ezekiel "Elix" Elsegood *(debut)*
* Raeburn "Calvin" Cave *(debut)*
	+ Ashmore *(debut)*
	+ Marlowe *(debut)*
	+ Lake *(debut)*

### Antagonists

* Immanuel "I.M. Marrow" Baines *(debut)*
* Thomasina "Tomahawk" Hawkings *(debut)*
* Rickie "Ribeye" Eikenboom *(debut)*
* Porter "Porterhouse" Von Grimmelshausen *(debut)*
* Fitzroy "Filet Mignon" Milburn-Gagnon *(debut)*

### Entry Mentions

* Unknown Journal Writer *(first mentioned)*
* The Preacher In Ashen Black *(first mentioned)*
* The Priests In Ashen Black *(first mentioned)*

## Aliens Used

### Partially Used

* L'Goon *(debut, unintentional)*
* Pole Mancer *(debut, unintentional)*
* Cement Shoes *(debut, unintentional)*
* Entropic Punch *(debut, unintentional)*
* Shady Nasty *(debut, unintentional)*
* Ringleader *(debut, unintentional)*
* Matterialize *(debut)*
* Juul Thief *(debut)*
* 10rec *(3x, debut)*
* Indense *(2x, debut)*
* Brawnworm *(debut)*
* RebelLion *(debut)*
* Whalping Hand *(debut)*

## Trivia

* The opening journal entry was originally written as a writing exercise that was not correlated and had no intentions of being used in any project, although with the decision of starting the series, was included to hint towards Ezekiel's history and foreshadow the presence of the mysterious journal planner.
* L'Goon technically being the first alien used, despite being an unintentional cameo as a partial manifestation, was added to intentionally contrast with the *Ben 10* franchise's usage of transformations with fire-based powers up until *Omniverse*, instead having one with water-based powers, although any usage of them has yet to be seen.
* Immanuel and the rest of the Skeleton Crew were initially planned for another series, Investigation Neon, although were scrapped feeling as if they would have hard to incorporate into the plot after difficulties writing an episode draft centered around them.
* In an earlier episode draft, Ezekiel was originally intended to be incapacitated at the Skeleton Crew's hideout, as Rickie's Insomniac power was originally conceptualized as paralyzing others upon touching a particular vertebrae, instead of the final idea of his spinal damage reflection, where Immanuel would have kept him alive for further interrogation, although was changed feeling it was too anticlimactic.