Book One Chapter Five

# **Chapter V:**

"It's only getting worse, isn't it? Not just for me, but for everyone? I'm assuming it hasn't been the easiest for you, it's been quite stressful these past two months for me. It's been a long time since we talked, huh? We really do have to talk more than once a month. If you can, please do try to get into contact with me so that we're not relying simply on fate.

There's a lot I want to talk to you about and I'd rather tell you sooner than later, well all that I can tell you now. Believe it or not, there's a limit on everything that I can tell you, and I can't say who told me that, because I don't know myself. If I had to guess, it might be the universe itself due to me being.. well I'll tell you when you contact me, so don't hesitate! Oh before I forget, Knock 'em dead, Corrie!"

- C.K.

## Downtown Brandon, Stonemill, IZ 144/6/76 (M), Sunday, December 11, Maximus Kevimer - Windswept Fortress -

The air was cool as I stepped out of the car and headed into the courtroom. A big chunk of the mansion group was attending the case, a good percentage of which were from the school group. There were a lot of people from their school here, and even some people I didn't even know. I was one of the last people to arrive, and I sat next to Pollux and his brother. They were in the middle of a conversation when I sat down.

Not too long after everyone came in, the judge took to the stage and started the court proceedings. The opening rites were delivered, and Kagiri and his lawyer were called to take the stand. He was the first suspect as he was the only one who lived with Kiri, so it made sense for him to be called first. He gave his alibi which was proven by not only the teachers who were present in the meeting, but also by video evidence.

It was pretty clear to everyone who knew about the case (well, mostly everyone) that Kagiri was completely innocent, and this was only to prove that. Now that the obvious was settled, it was going to be time for the main event soon, the main suspect that was on everyone's minds, especially when they reviewed the footage from the meeting, that suspect being Lurio Kiff.

Lurio Kiff is a pretty big figure, a man that everyone loves, but he was a prime suspect in this case, even though he was generally held as a man who could 'do no wrong'. I wasn't too sure if his defense would hold up and I kind of wanted him to fail. Maybe it was just to see someone paying for the crime, or maybe it was a retaliation against his perfect image.

However, it didn't play out like that. While it was acknowledged that he was not at the meeting, he knew Kiri was feeling bad that day so he went to her house to drop off flowers and that day's work. Although Kagiri did not know of his coming to the house, it was proven by him and security camera footage from the house across the street that he indeed only dropped something off, but that footage was also very peculiar.

After Kiff's car left, the feed from the following hour was completely erased. With a loss of evidence this massive, it was beginning to seem like this was just going to be another drop in the unsolved mysteries bucket, another pointless case with the only consolation for which being a dim hope that she was still alive somewhere, however it was Kiff's Lawyer that pointed something out.

The owner of the security camera in question was in the crowd, and in a rare event was called to the stand. The man was questioned if he knew why this could be, yet he stated that he had not deleted the files, and he stated that it could have been his son. The man was pretty old and his son was in his 20s, but not many people believed his defence, no matter how hard he swore he was innocent.

He seemed pretty calm throughout his defense, and I know for sure if it were me up there, I'd be sweating bullets, so the fact that he stayed so calm is a likely indicator that he's telling the truth. But the strength of his defense didn't matter, because there was no proof at all, so the investigation was effectively dead in its tracks, however the judge ruled that we'd have to come back.

The fact that EVERYBODY had to come back was pretty annoying to me personally, and it also seemed to inconvenience Pollux, Pollux's brother, Vortex, and Nick, who all sat around me. We were known to be a pretty rag-tag group of oddballs, but I really didn't care. We had become pretty good friends in the past two months or so, and we always hung out together and embraced our weirdness and outcasthood.

As we walked out of the courthouse after an all too pointless meeting, I felt a sense of sadness coming off of Kagiri. I could understand it, because I was mad when people I loved disappeared without a trace. I was especially mad because it was all so pointless. I didn't want it to be another unsolved mystery, but I had a funny feeling it might be unless there was some kind of revelation that would turn the tables.

Stuff like that only happens in movies though, so none of us were holding out for a spectacular twist. There wasn't much to do at this point and we didn't have anything planned for the week. We weren't sure if we were going to go back, but I knew I was going back to support Kagiri, and I'm sure the others had the same thing in mind. The six of us were all good friends, and even if it meant sitting through a lengthy court battle for a friend, we'd be there.

Although it was six of us that were the best friends, the group was rather flexible. It wasn't uncommon for some of Nick's friends to join us, which added 3 more to the group, those being Kay, Nomad, and Fray. Vortex had seemed to get along famously with Kosa, so she tagged along at times. As well as that, Jude would come along sometimes. Everybody loves Jude, and who wouldn't? He's charming and funny, especially with his weird accent.

Jude was like the unofficial seventh member, and I only say unofficial because he seemed to be rather busy. None of us knew what it was he spends his free time on, but it didn't seem to be any of our business. Other than those five occasional additions, the six of us were always together. We were always exploring and looking for new places to go.

Pollux suggested we go the windswept valley and check out some of the woods near there, so we all agreed on it. Our party was Pollux, Pollux's brother, Vortex, Nick, Kosa, and I. Before we left, we had realized Pollux's brother didn't have a proper name. Considering how he was pretty much a robot made to hunt down crystals, it's likely whoever created him didn't view him as a person, but we did.

Unakie. Derived from the mythological god of necessity, Ananke. We gave him that name due to his purpose to find the crystals, a necessity for whom ever built him, and thus a fitting namesake. He liked the name, so we kept it. I liked it too, partially because I was the one who came up with it. Pollux being a mythology buff suggested naming him after an earthen figure of legend, suggesting Ananke himself.

We all left for the Windswept Valley and got there sooner than we expected to. When we got to the Willow Hill as we called it, we stared out across the valley towards Fort Yina. I had seen it from here many times when we'd go to this hill to stargaze or watch the clouds, but I'd never been inside. Out of all of us, Pollux was the only one who had been inside the fort. We ran down the hill and into the valley, walking towards the other side of the valley.

It wasn't too far, so it wasn't that long of a walk to get to the other side. There weren't many gentle slopes up the side of the valley beside the fort, but we were able to find one that was climbable. In hindsight, we should have used one of the two entrances in the Brandon Suburbs, because the entrances into an ancient and legendary fort is in the middle of a suburban neighborhood, for some reason. It's likely that they just built the suburbs around it, although that's a weird decision.

We got up to the corner of the fort, and we walked along the edge. The fort was built above a couple of rivers, and in some places along the edge of the valley where it was built, waterfalls cut deep into the ground beneath the fort. In some of these places, the foundation above it collapsed. The area we were walking over had a waterfall below it, a section that was clearly visible from Willow Hill, and it was a part that always enthralled me.

The whole fort was almost mythical to me in all of its strange qualities, mostly the mystery of why such a place was abandoned, and how those lights are indestructible. Above that, there was a strange aura representing an emotion I could not place which only added to the air of mystery and forebodingness that surrounded this place and only added to its almost paranormal quality.

As we walked through the empty streets of decaying buildings, our ongoing conversation somehow found the topic of our fathers. None of us had an active father figure, but we had all known our fathers in some regard, all of us except for Vortex, who was alone at the back of the group by himself. I was rather interested and slightly concerned by it, so I asked him about it.

"Really? You never knew your father at all? Not even when you were young?"

"Nope, not at all. He hired some asshole with the straightest, blondest hair I had ever seen to give me the worst childhood possible."

"..."

"and there it is again, I killed the conversation. I'm really good at that."

After an awkward silence, we decided to change the topic of the conversation because none of us wanted to continue from there, especially Vortex who seemed to be pretty anxious. We kept going on down the endless grid of buildings and decided that we wanted to go inside of one, but we would need to go inside of one of the few that wasn't crumbling and primed to collapse on us at any moment.

As we turned one of the street corners, we found one building that wasn't destroyed. The building looked like all of the rest, and there wasn't any signage or anything that could tell what its purpose could be, the only things making it different from the others were its size and state of decay, and the only thing that identified it was its address number which was plastered in brass above the door.

I opened the door and went inside, taking in the dingy smell of what seemed to be a classical office building. Peeling eggshell painted every surface that wasn't a piece of furniture or walls covered in dingy off-white wallpaper. The furniture and whitewashed floorboards were made of hardwood, the furniture expertly crafted and the dusty floorboards creaky and loud. The place smelled of mothballs.

The offputtingly clinical feeling building had a steep staircase to the second level beside a front desk, and rooms on the left and right of the main area. Even inside, there wasn't any sign of what the purpose of this building was or could be. Everyone who was inside dispersed, leaving only me in the main room, and Vortex still outside the door and looking in with a look of pain and stress.

For a second, I looked back at him and contemplated if I should go to him, but I turned back and went inside to check out this main room. Every part of this room felt slightly off, almost as if it was a poor recreation of reality. A thin film of dust covered every surface and dying flowers stood still in their pots on every table, the only objects in the room, except for a folder of papers that I spotted on the front desk.

Almost invisible manilla against the walls and off-white counter top, I didn't notice it when we first walked in, and it caught my attention rather quickly. I walked across the long front room over to the desk to look at the folder. I picked it up and blew the dust off of it, revealing a large CONFIDENTIAL stamp which was pressed across the front of the unnamed folder in red ink. I placed it down and opened it.

The folder was full of old legal documents which seemed to pertain to everybody's favorite Lurio Kiff, someone who we have pretty split opinions on. Vortex and I hate his guts for our own reasons, but everybody else seems to love the guy. As I read more of the first page, I could feel my jaw dropping. It's not a wonder why this folder was stamped as confidential. I turned around, jaw still open a bit and motioned for him to come inside.

"This place is giving me shit vibes, it reminds me way too much of- nevermind, it's not important. What did you find?"

"You're going to want to come in and see this,"

"What is it?"

"A folder,"

He looked hesitant at first, but after a moment he walked in through the door, the same stressed look on his face. The various bands on his arms clanked against each other and the floors seemed to whine as he walked. Vortex had a loud personality, partially represented by his bands, most of which made of a metallic material which tended to collide a lot as he walked around, usually not locked tightly into place on his arms.

Walking up beside me, I gave him the folder and he looked at it initially with a look of confusion which faded into shock, which faded into sadness and anger. He started to cry a bit, but he shed only a single tear and slammed on the desk in anger. He looked down at the papers, and then back at me asking if he could take them. I told him to go ahead and he took the folder and put it in his pocket dimension.

The documents were pertaining to Kiff's kids, of which he had several with his six wives over the years, only four of which he took the names of. He had at least one kid with each, all of which haven't been seen in years. The more interesting part though was about a child he had with another woman, who happened to be Vortex's mother. Knowing that you were the bastard child of the man you hate is hard for anyone to hear.

We both walked back to the front of the room and waited silently for the others, who didn't take too long. We didn't speak a word of the documents for various reasons, and we all stepped back out into the harsh light of day. Although it was bright outside, I could feel the somber air of reading that document and how it effected Vortex. I led us down the road in hopes we'd find something to make up for this.

As we continued down the road, we stumbled across another building which looked suitable to explore. It looked rather generic on the outside, like any other but this one seemed more house shaped than the more ambiguous buildings that were built up and down the ill-defined streets of the fort. As I did for the classical office, I kept my position in front of the group and opened the door for everyone else to go in.

The interior seemed to confirm my suspicions, and this was indeed a typical house, although it was built in an older style. The front foyer was grand and the house was painted in contrasting colors in an art deco style. The railings were painted black with flowery patterns decorating the stale wallpaper which was plastered all over the building. Just like before, everyone else went around, even Vortex, but there was still one left behind.

Pollux stood in the doorway, one hand resting on the frame and looking down at the floor with the same pain in his eyes as Vortex. He looked to be shaking a bit, and this time I didn't want to leave the last man with stress to deal with. I walked up to him and asked him what was wrong, seeing that he was clearly on edge about something which he didn't want to share.

"Pollux, what's wrong?"

"It's nothing Max, it's just this place is giving me the creeps."

"What about it?"

"I can't really place it, but I've been here before."

"Anything else?"

"Something bad happened."

"What exactly?"

"I don't know or don't remember, or don't want to remember. I can think it in my head but my mouth can't put together the words. Maybe I'm sick,"

"Look Pollux, we all have stuff like this, a part of our past that eats up our conscience and it's not good to ignore that. Can you tell me what's wrong? I'm worried for you,"

"I'm sorry, I can't."

It was looking like I wasn't going to get through to him, no matter how hard I tried. Maybe some things are too awful to mention even if it's necessary to? After a bit more back and forth, I decided to leave him alone, as it seemed that is what he wanted. I leaned against the wall perpendicular to the door and waited silently for the others who came shortly after we stopped talking to each other.

According to them, this place was boring and not as interesting as the office. There didn't seem to be much to this place, nor to the office but maybe I didn't explore enough to find out what all of the hype was about. I was just interested in getting us to another place because we were going on a bad streak and I wasn't too keen on staying here any longer because of Pollux's reaction to being there.

Maybe it was foolish to roll the dice like this one more time, but I've rolled far more risky dice and came out on top most of the time. Sometimes you die once or twice along the way to finding out how to beat the system, but when you're someone like me, it doesn't matter that much. I say that but I often do wonder about that, what if I don't come back one day?

The only thing I can do is hope I come back every time and maybe the time I don't come back it'll matter to a lot of people and that's the goal isn't it? Or maybe life's about living and not about dying, but I've thought about death too much to know for sure, maybe someone who's more mortal and grounded can tell me the difference one day, if I make it of course.

We walked for quite a while until we came to another building which was fit to explore, this one being much longer than any of the others, but only two stories tall like every building we'd been inside and almost everything here. It seemed pretty strange, almost menacing in a way but I brushed it off. Maybe seeing Vortex and Pollux react badly to specific buildings was getting me worried too.

I opened up the door and walked inside and nearly dropped when I realized what this was. It was a school building, but not just any school building. This one was pulled directly from an experience of mine I had a long time ago, a memory that was since bedded deeply into the subconscious, deep in a grave where it belonged, far away from the light of the waking mind.

It wasn't a good experience, quite the opposite. I would rather not share the details of the experience, but I will detail the place itself. We were standing in a long corridor, the exterior wall to the left and classrooms and lockers on the right. The lights were dead because the power had been cut. The only light was from the daylight peering into the hall from the exterior windows.

I could piece together every part of the event like a puzzle. I was stood over here, Zach was over there, Lucy was looking through that open locker, Alex was peering through the window, Joe and Mariah were talking to each other like lovebirds, Mr. Herald was checking his watch even though there was a clock at the end of the hall where we were all standing, 11:53 AM.

The others looked at me with confusion, Pollux and Vortex to each other and then back at me with the same concern I had shown to them. I realized my eyes were no longer dry and I was knelt on the floor, my legs and pants all dusty from the floor, and then I began to realize something. The floor wasn't dusty when they stepped into the hall, in fact it was freshly cleaned at the time.

Although this was made to look like a memory of mine, a very bad memory, it was off. How long had this been here? And then I thought more about what Vortex and Pollux said. "It reminds me way too much of," "I've been here before". These were made to look like our memories, but they've been left here to rot, and they're not pristine, especially mine and Pollux's.

The house was really dusty, and so is this place, more so than Vortex's memory. Maybe it's how we remember them and that's why the air is so thick and everything is so dusty here. I got up and brushed by eyes and legs, thinking about how I was going to describe what I was thinking to the others without airing out Pollux and Vortex, while making it understandable to those who wouldn't have a clue of what I was on about.

"Look, this might sound really fucking crazy, but you are all seeing a school hallway covered in dust and thick air, right?"

They all nodded in agreement.

"Ok good. So this is a memory, or at least it's a recreation of how I remember a memory. It's a bad one, and I think that's important. I think these more pristine buildings are recreations of bad memories in some weird process I can't even begin to understand or even explain, but just trust me."

Needless to say, I got Pollux and Vortex's trust right off the bat, and even though the others seemed confused, they also seemed to trust me even though I was probably speaking total nonsense to them. I decided to lead us outside and I tried to explain it as best as I could to them, breaking it down and attacking it at different angles until they all understood me, somehow.

With all of that done, it was clear to me that we had all been done with exploring these buildings, and we all wanted to know what was in the center of the fort, something none of us knew. Pollux never bothered to go this far in, and for some reason planes don't fly close enough to see it and it's impossible to make out, even from the watch towers Pollux would sleep in.

Trusting that we were going the right way, we headed for the center with the only point of reference being a compass. After a long time, the buildings in the distance didn't seem to grow any closer, and I didn't realize that at all until Kosa had pointed it out. Looking closely at the buildings in the distance, they were quite far out which meant there had to be a massive space in the middle.

Sure enough, when we got there that's what it was. A giant square portion of the base was completely empty, the only thing that was there was the same floor that's everywhere else. Just like everything else here, its purpose is somewhat ambiguous but this place seemed to be more clear in what it was made to me. This could either have been a passive parade square or a battle field.

Why they would build a massive courtyard in the middle of their fort was a question I didn't have an answer to, one of many I had since we got here. Maybe this place was more of a machine than an actual fort that was used by anyone, but there are many real reports of seeing people from the red kingdom go in and out occasionally, and Pollux was stationed in the towers that watched over it.

There wasn't much to see here at all so we decided to head to one more building, this time being one of the ones along the parade square. The buildings along the straight edge of the square seemed to generally be in better condition than the ones in the packed areas we were in before which seemed rather odd to me. Wouldn't it work the other way? This place and its strange rules and physics had confused me enough already.

The physics of this place were very strange, almost dreamlike but I was sure that it was all real because I wasn't the only one seeing and feeling it. All of us were taking note of all the strange things that were happening in this place which told us all that we weren't alone in seeing all of this crazy shit. Even with everything strange that we saw, we decided to roll the dice one more time.

Like everything else, the building we chose looked like all the rest on the outside. There wasn't anything too remarkable about this building at all, except that it seemed to be smaller than others. Its shape reminded me of the house we went into earlier, however its shape was different. Knowing what I did about every other building we went inside, I opened the door and braced myself.

The Foyer was large and grand, taking up almost the entire front of the building with two rooms off to the side which led down the building. There were two staircases which met in the middle over another set which led down into a dark room. There were low gates in front of the stairs and rooms to the side, leaving only one way to go. Everybody went inside this time, and I stared down into the darkness.

I walked down the creaky staircase, shortly followed by everyone else. As I went down, I flipped on a light that flickered over us as we went down the stairs. I got to the bottom of the staircase and faced the large metal door that stood in front of us. It seemed slightly out of place here, almost like a vault door in a bank. I reached for the handle, but before I opened it, I looked back to the others.

"If anything happens, tell my story." I called to the others in a half joking manner.

"It's not like anything's gonna happen Maximus," Nick said.

I swung open the heavy door, putting all my weight to open it. After a certain point, it got much easier to open. The entire room ahead was completely empty and pitch black. I looked back and went inside the room. The air smelt vaguely of ozone and the floor was hard and warm to the touch. I looked around the room and didn't see anything at all, just a black void. It was dark, but it wasn't. I could see my feet on the ground and my entire body was in harsh light, almost as if lit up in a studio.

When I looked back at the others in the hallway behind me, the door slammed shut on its own. I was able to see that nobody was close enough to have closed it. I ran to the door and told them I would be fine, but they seemed pretty worried about me. I told them to leave and that I'd find another way out and they seemed fine with it, but I wasn't completely certain if there was a way out at all.

I decided to take my chances anyways because in a place as strange as this, there might be some way out of a completely blank room, but then again it was a large gamble. I decided to walk in a single direction so that I could find my way back if I needed to. As I kept walking though, the door only seemed to get further and further away every time I looked back over my shoulder without any sign of anything else.

Just like how the walls were impossibly dark, it was impossibly quiet as well. There was almost no sound at all, even my own footsteps seemed somewhat muted. Even though I could still hear, the silence only grew as I went deeper and deeper into a never-ending void.

It didn't take much time at all for me to start to break down even though normally I'm pretty resilient. I started to wonder if I would ever come out of this place alive or if I would die alone. All was not hopeless quite yet though, as I continued down and down into the endless room I stopped abruptly.

My foot hit a wall, and I felt around to confirm what I was feeling. There was definitely a wall here and I felt around to see how long it went, eventually coming up to a corner. I felt around to make my way around this place, hugging the wall and going through a couple of entryways into other hallways.

Although this method seemed somewhat effective in the beginning, it only grew more pointless seeing as it was clear to me that this was in fact some sort of maze, and seeing as there was no indication of where to go, I essentially had to rely completely on luck to get out of this mess, luck I wasn't counting on.

Knowing me, my luck is consistently awful, so I'd be lucky to get out of this place intact. The way things were going, it didn't look like there was any physical danger to speak of, but I could feel my mind breaking the deeper I went. It was like I could hear the slow, ominous waves of the insanity onset that was growing in my mind.

It wasn't like it was getting better either, and it only seemed to get worse and worse. It was fine when it was only a feeling of losing my sanity, but then paranoia and anxiety set in, and everything started to spiral downwards from there. I started walking faster, feeling myself start to sweat and breathe heavier.

I walked faster and faster, breaking into a sprint, but I stopped, remembering how there were walls everywhere here. I had to take it slow, although with the fires raging inside my head it was getting hard to focus on being safe and finding a way out of here alive and relatively well.

I didn't even know how long I'd been down here, probably hours. My legs were getting tired and all I wanted to do was lay down and cry my eyes out. I felt so defeated and dead inside and I was on the edge of a breakdown, but then I saw something up ahead.

Far above the darkness, there was a single yellow, flickering light over a white wooden door. It was almost like an angel calling to me from atop a stairway to the stars. I thought I was dreaming for a moment and took a second to look down at myself. I was covered in sweat and dirt, and I hadn't truly realized how long I'd been here. I didn't even know how long I'd been here, and my watch had seemingly stopped when I got locked inside the space.

I walked down the empty, black hallway and up to the stairway. I stared up at the pristine white door, almost impossibly white and started to climb. The door didn't seem to move as I started up the stairway. The faster I walked, the further it got from me. I kept speeding up, going faster and faster towards the door until it grew closer and closer and closer until I slammed right into it, my hand landing on the handle and pushing it open with my bodyweight.

As I stumbled out onto the ground, I looked up at the sky and saw that it was night. I looked down at my watch, and it confirmed what I was seeing. I was not too far from where I entered, and when I looked back at the building behind me, I saw that there was no door. I got up and dusted myself off, walking out of the fortress. It took a while but I finally got to the edge and back up to the hill with the Willow tree and stared out into the breaking dawn, breathing in the morning air.

After about an hour, I decided to go back to the car to see if the others were waiting for me, but the car wasn't there. The warm morning air surrounded me as I took out my bike and rode my way back to the mansion. As I rode down the road, I could feel sweat pouring down my head as the hot air warmed me, being very oddly hot for a December day. As I turned the corner towards the mansion, I could see Pollux and Yomaho talking to each other, and then turning to face me.

Their faces were painted in a shocked expression, which was very confusing to me. They both ran up to me and hugged me as I dismounted my bike. At first I couldn't make out what they were saying as they were talking over each other, until I told them to speak to me one at a time. They both stared at each other and then Yomaho put his arms on my shoulders and started talking to me in a very serious tone.

"Maximus. It's July 27th, and there's something really important that's going to happen in a few days but we'll tell you about that later. "

"We thought you died."

## Fury Manor, Stonemill, IZ 144/6/76 (M), Thursday, December 7, 2058, Corrie Entra - Heavy Hearted -

Lately, things have been pretty different from before. It's almost as if there was a sudden change in the world that caused everything to change ever so slightly, yet still in a significant way. I was far from the only person who noticed this though, and even people outside of our 'group of weirdos' as Alpha put it noticed it. Although the others are a bit more critical about the issue than I am, I've always tried to look for a reason.

As a man of science, I've always tried to look for logical reasons that may lead me to a reasonable conclusion, yet I have been rather unsuccessful in my search for what happened. Obviously, there's a reason for everything, and there had to be a reason for this. The funny thing is, it's not the only strange thing that's happened lately. In fact, ever since I got to IZ 144 back in August, it seems like strange happenings began to pop up everywhere.

I didn't forget that both Mr. Kiff, Pluto, and Pollux stated that there had been an uptick in wormhole activity since mid August of this year, and according to Pollux relaying Kiff's information, there has been a very notable increase since then. Sometimes I think that I somehow caused it, but that seems pretty unlikely. There isn't too much about me that's special as far as I know.

Another thing I began to note was that there were more disappearances as well. There was a report that a couple of lamp posts around the world were vanishing in the middle of the night, but I was more concerned with missing people. Whether it be the Red Kingdom, the coronians, or something else, it's pretty serious. Even though the missing peoples cases have been rising with wormhole activity, correlation doesn't always equal causation.

There is a high possibility that I have considered that the wormholes could be causing these disappearances, I had a funny feeling that it wasn't the only cause, or not even a main cause, as a very high percentage of the monitored wormhole activity from stations all around the world reported that only about 9.621% of known wormhole appearances actually took anything.

Wormhole monitoring stations are not capable of pinpointing what exactly goes through a wormhole, but only if something does or not due to the energy change. These stations are also not the greatest at pinpointing exact locations or exact times, so they shouldn't be used as solid evidence for cases of missing people, as some of the more prolific cases had seemed to suggest and draw the conclusion of.

There have been 15 rather prolific missing persons cases, only 5 of which have been solved, which is higher than the typical solving rate for missing persons cases from the months of August to December of the year 2058. Ever since October I've gotten very interested in sciences and the science of the bizarre, and I've been working to get some of my findings published, but it's harder than you would think.

I've been thinking, and it seems that maybe it's not that my papers aren't 'suitable for publishing' for every publishing company I had went to, and that maybe it was something bigger. I've always thought about conspiracy theories and how they're all probably not true, but some of them might have some weight, especially with some of the things that have happened here in Stonemill lately.

Other than that, not much else had really changed. A couple of bad things happened though. Unfortunately, Kagiri's sister Kiri went missing from her home last week. Kagiri was at school because there was some kind of issue. His teacher was in a meeting and he needed to ask her a question, and when he walked into the meeting room he got into trouble, and he had to stay even longer than he wanted to.

He's been pretty depressed about it, and it's sad to see him blaming himself for something that was completely out of his control. Although we did have a court date coming up on December 11, he's not too hopeful about Kiri's case being solved. I was hopeful that it would be solved, but I doubted it would be as prolific as the other cases, unless something big is involved.

Another thing that happened recently had to do with Nomad and Fray. They were walking home the other day when Mike and his gang of fuckheads jumped them. They both had to go to the hospital, and even though there were other witnesses, Mike got no punishment. It's all because the big bastard's dad is head of the police or something, which pretty much means he is immune to persecution.

I'd bet an arm and a leg to say that he's only popular because of his dad's power. Him and his sister Claire are pretty popular, however Claire is much more polite. She seems to not be as evil as Mike, if at all, but I don't know enough about her to say anything with any validity. I hope she's as nice as she seems though, because if we were dealing with two ass hole Alforas then I would leave the school.

Other than those two pretty big things, it's just been the same struggle. Life isn't easy, especially when you're part of the group of 'others' that everybody seems to hate. Hate may be a strong word for it, but whatever they're feeling isn't nice at all. Many people like to judge things without any basis, something I could never understand myself. It always seemed like a weird idea, and I could never really reason why.

In my search for the truth, I have come to the conclusion that the 'reason why' is often nonexistent. Maybe it's something wired into our brains, to hate people who are different from us? Or maybe it's just a small number of people whose moral compass points them away from reason. But all of that happened in the past, so let's move this along and get to the present.

It was a day like most others, and when I came back from school I decided to go on a bike ride. I biked down the main road down into the suburbs of Downtown Brandon and went to go find a path I hadn't gone down before. It took a short while, but I eventually got to the path known as King Street. Although it's named like a road, it's a path that runs very far and wide.

King Street is one of the longest paths on the island and it spans very far from it's start right here, branching out and connecting to other paths all around the place. Without anything better to do, I hopped back onto my bicycle and peddled down the hard dirt road through the forest. It was exhilarating to see all of the trees and plants fly by so fast as I sped down the road.

I was surprised to see that there were no other people around. I would expect the longest forest road in the country would see more attention. I wasn't complaining that there was nobody around, though, because if there were any then I'd have to slow down. I kicked up quite a storm of dust as I sped down the dirt road of the forest trails.

Zooming through the forest was so much more fun than I would have ever thought, and I was pretty glad I came up with the idea to do it. I was a bit unsettled that there was nobody around, not even any birds or anything. It was pretty quiet actually, but I tried to ignore that and focus on riding my bike so I wouldn't crash. When I got to a straightaway, I was surprised to see a person walking on the road.

I was even more surprised to realize that it was Jude. I stopped your bike and said hi to him, and we talked for a bit. After deciding that we both had nothing better to do, I hopped off my bike and walked it beside him as we both continued down the trail. We didn't know exactly where we would be going but we decided to take it wherever it lead.

We walked for a while, talking about random things as we did. Or conversation ranged pretty far from where we started, and eventually we got to the subject of tech companies and the sort. Jude was pretty big on tech, and even though I didn't talk to him as often, I still knew it as he was very knowledgeable on the subject, some might even call him a nerd, although I do not view that as an insult.

The forest path felt like it was much more lonely with Jude around, even though I had company this time. There was almost like a strange sense of dread that hung over me, and I was sure that I wasn't going crazy, because Jude felt it too. Eventually, we came to a turn in the road, and as we rounded the bend, we saw a peculiar man on the other side.

Although I could not place it, there was definitely something off about the man. He greeted us and acted pretty friendly, even offering to join us in or journey, but I still held a mistrust for him. At least or group was bigger so that if something attacked us, something it almost felt like would happen, than it'd be a pretty easy fight. I tried to take my mind off of that possibility, but it was a bit of a struggle to.

We had pretty much stopped talking, and when we did Jude's normally laid-back surfer voice seemed to completely fade. His voice was shaky and I could see his frantic eyes through his sunglasses. I was pretty scared too, and although I tried not to let it show, it was likely very obvious. I, like Jude, just wanted to get the fuck out of here and go home, however we both knew that Jude was going to have to stay with him for a longer time.

It was about an hour to sundown when I finally got to the point where the path intersected with the road to the mansion. I waved the man goodbye, and I gave Jude a long hug. I wished him luck on whatever might happen, and after one last goodbye, I walked down the forest path out to the main road leading into the mansion. I told a couple of the others what happened before going up into my room.

I was pretty tired, and I wanted to get some shuteye, but that wasn't the only reason I wanted to get to sleep so early. I wanted to try and catch my pen pal at a good time. I hadn't been able to make direct contact with him before then, and I wanted to really try. I knew he did too, and so it was a mutual agreement that we'd meet on this day. Although rather inconvenient, I really needed something to take my mind off of Jude.

...

As the sun began to fall below the horizon, the man led Jude through the forest path, mentioning he had a place he could stay for the night. Although he initially had his doubts, the man seemed pretty trustworthy despite his aura. The man walked pretty fast through the woods, causing Jude to power walk to keep pace with him. Jude thought he just wanted to get to get to their place earlier.

The sun seemed to slow down as they walked swiftly on the path, but it was likely the dread building up on Jude's mind. As the sky darkened with the setting of the sun, the man's speed slowly decreased. By twilight, they were walking at a normal pace again, and Jude definitely caught on. Although the man had done a good job of earning his trust for the past two hours of walking alone together, Jude begun to cast doubts.

Although there were alarm bells ringing, Jude didn't want to address them because acknowledging them would be acknowledging that you were alone in an endless forest with an untrustworthy man. It didn't help that they were already pretty deep into the woods, having been power-walking for about an hour and a half. It was at exactly 8:48 PM, when the sun had gone that the man begun to let Jude know he shouldn't trust him.

The man's name was Ethan, and he made sure he knew that. He begun to tell Jude a lot about himself, and although Jude didn't want to think about it, he knew he was only feeding this information because he could. It wasn't like he was going to let him live, and Ethan let him know for sure. I couldn't imagine the sense of dread he must have felt in those moments.

Ethan led Jude through the woods, going deeper and deeper down a part of the path less-travelled. They kept going, until they got to their destination, a garage-like shed in the middle of the woods. It was far off of the path, but not too far. It was illuminated by harsh white light that flowed through the open door. As they walked closer, Jude got a better look at the inside of the building.

There were two metal doors that folded upwards into the ceiling, one of which was closed. The two longer walls were made of steel and the roof was black and pointed. There were three lights overhead , hanging off of a metal cage-like structure connected to the ceiling. On the sides of the room were a couple of shelves and boxes containing tarps and ropes. The only thing in the centre of the concrete floor was a single chair, sitting just below the centre light.

"Sit down." Ethan said, a cold emotionless tone in his voice.

"Hell fucking no-"

"SIT THE FUCK DOWN," He drew a gun and put it against his head.

Jude wanted to try and call his bluff, but that would be suicide. For now, he was at the mercy of a psychopath with a gun and a knife, and all he could do was to comply with his demands. He sat down on the chair and braced himself. He knew what he was going to do to him. He grabbed a knife and stabbed him in the chest, and as he held his chest, he tied up his arms.

He wasn't tied to the chair, but his arms were bound tightly behind his back in a slightly painful position. Whenever he tried to move his arms, the tension of the rope would burn. He wanted to escape, but he knew there was no way he could. I do not want to go into as much detail about the following events, but it is merely something I must do, and something I have done twice in the past.

The following events I have not been able to specifically deduce, but from what I understand is that Ethan showed no mercy. Ethan was a man on a mission, and that mission was to kill Jude. He wasn't one to back down nor was he one to keep his depravity spared. Mercy wasn't a word that held meaning to him. The force and the heat of his anger were furious and there was nobody to hold him back.

Once he was finished with him, Jude thought he would kill him right then and there, but he wasn't done. He beat him up and continued his assault. He couldn't do anything. He was helpless and alone. Ethan stood over him and pulled out his gun, but he changed his mind at that time. Ethan had another depraved idea for what he was going to do with Jude. He briefly untied his bounding and gave him an order.

"I want you to write your last words,"

"w-what?"

"With your blood."

He was shocked, but when Ethan raised his gun, he had to listen to him. He threw his knife to Jude, half expecting him to charge back at him, but they both knew that was a foolish idea. He dipped his hand in the pool of bodily mess that laid on the ground, and began to write on a blank section of floor. At some point, he had to stab himself again to get more of his own dark orange blood to paint a final message.

"GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN. DEAD STARS STILL BURN. TELL KOSA I LOVE HER."

Once the message was painted, He laid his favorite pair of sunglasses over the message as a final sendoff. He carefully crawled backwards and without hesitation, Ethan tied his arms again. Jude didn't resist this time. Ethan didn't show him any mercy, and once he was done, he shot him 8 times in the chest. He walked outside of the shed and into the night, off to commit more crimes against morality.

In Ethan's mind, he was dead. No chance anyone could have survived an assault like that, but it turned out he was wrong. By some stroke of cosmic luck, or being required for a better purpose, he wasn't dead. He was alive, but he was losing blood. While everybody in the mansion slept soundly, Jude cried for someone. He screamed as loud as he could, but nobody could hear him. There wasn't anybody around in the forest, they know better than to be alone at the witching hour.

All he cold do was stare up at the ceiling and embrace his fate. As it got darker, he begun to talk to himself. "So this is it, huh? Dying alone? I've always been the pathetic sibling. . ." and then darkness. The call of the void had never been louder, and now it sounded like a cry of instruments, trumpets maybe? They were so distant, but they grew loud and waxed and waned, just like the waves at the beach, the waves he used to conquer, but now, they meant nothing.

...

"Woah what's that over there?"

"Looks like a shed, Matt,"

"Yea, but it's big. Do you wanna check it out?"

"Well, we have nothing better to do. We don't have somewhere to be, so why not?"

"Quickly, before we go in what's the time?"

"It's nearly 12, so still kind of early."

"Nearly 12? So we've been walking through here for like 9 hours?"

"Well, yes."

"Alright let's have a ga-"

"What is i- WOAH What the fuck happened here?"

"Looks like murder.. and maybe something else too,"

"Well he's only got a shirt on so yeah,"

"What the fuck, I wonder how long he's been here? Or if he's still alive?"

"I doubt it. There's a message over there behind him,"

"Gone but not forgotten. Dead stars still burn. Tell Kosa I love her. Seems like they knew they were about to die so they wrote it out,"

"Could be a suicide note,"

"I don't know Dave, to me it seems like he was attacked. Why else would there be bloody rope?"

"Well there's a chair and rope, so maybe he tried one thing but it didn't work,"

"I still don't know man, maybe he's still alive,"

"Look at him. I doubt it."

"You never know, Dave."

"True, but don't be like Kat and go kissing corpses."

"EEW no not like that, I'm just checking for a pulse,"

Matt bend down beside Jude's body. He looked at it intently, and after a word from an impatient Dave, he slowly and carefully reached his hand towards Jude's neck. As his hand made contact, he felt warmth and a very slow but steady heartbeat. He was alive, but for how long? Luckily, both of them had med kits in their pocket dimensions. They came from a pretty rough region, so it was only common sense.

Although they didn't have too much stuff, they managed to patch him up decently enough. He wasn't bleeding but he needed to get to a hospital as soon as possible. They couldn't find the rest of his clothes, so they wrapped a towel around his waist. It was a difficult job, but they got it done. Just as they started to grow concerned if he was in a coma, they saw him move.

"Woah holy shit he just moved his arm,"

"Wait ok, just let him be. Do you have any water?"

"Of course I do."

Matt grabbed a bottle of water and poured it over him, to get him awake and to hydrate him. They emptied the bottle, making sure to not get it in his nose and then waited. They waited for a while for any sign of movement, until he shot awake, startling the two of them. At first, there was a long awkward silence that fell over the three, until Jude spoke.

"Y-you saved me?"

"Yes, we found you here and we stitched you up!"

"I don't know if I'll be able to repay you,"

"Don't worry about it, it's not a problem,"

Dave and Matt helped him up and started to make their way through the woods, looking for civilisation. Jude had a hard time walking on his own, but he insisted that he didn't get help from them. As they walked, Matt tried asking Jude what happened, but he didn't want to respond. Both Matt and Dave could understand the silence, having witnessed their fair share of fucked up things not too long ago, having come from the place between realities; a dimension of pure horror.

They didn't have any objective other than to find somewhere they could stay, but it didn't take too much to realise that they had taken the wrong path, and that they had gotten lost. Unluckily for them, none of the three were savvy with directions, nor did any of them have a map. In fact, none of them could use a compass to save their lives, and it likely would have.

So without any directions, they wandered aimlessly through the endless forests of Stonemill. Their only hope would be to get to the coast and go South from there, as they were much too far from civilization to try and retrace the path they took there. Ethan was smart in placing his murder cabins in the middle of nowhere, and they found this out by coming across another.

It was getting late and they had been wandering about through the woods for almost eighteen hours at this point. The sun had set past the horizon, falling past the trees not too long ago. Dusk filled the sky as twilight began to slowly fade past the horizon. There wasn't much light left in the sky, and they still hadn't found a place to sleep. Dave had a tent and a couple of sleeping bags though, so they were only trying to make as much progress as possible for that day.

As they walked through the woods, they spotted the second shed in a clearing just ahead. The area was rather unremarkable, and similarly to where they found Jude, there wasn't a clear path to it. Both doors to the metal structure were closed, and there didn't appear to be any light coming from underneath the doors. Jude stepped forward and reached out towards the doors, and after a moment of hesitation, he swung them both open in a swift motion.

The moment the doors swung open, the light turned on, powered by a motion trigger. As the harsh bright light illuminated another horrific scene, one that wasn't too different from what Jude had been subjected to, or at least what was left behind. There was no body, just stains of blood and everything else. The blood was a reddish-brown, not too far off from what was pumping through Jude's veins. They wondered for a second if they had went around in a circle, but there were some key differences here.

For starters, the blood was far from fresh, and it stuck to the floor almost like paint, which was clearly quite old. Second, the chair was broken, the rope was cut, and the message was different here. The floor and the room in general looked pretty torn up. It looked like whoever got kidnapped put up a good fight, however it was unclear if they survived.

Nothing else could give any proof of the outcome of what was definitely an uphill battle, but the message did hold a clue of how it may have started. The message was simple, short and to the point. It read "Fuck You, Ethan Coleridge". It looks like whoever this was knew his name, and they made a good use of their final message. They all hoped whoever this was survived somehow.

Jude and the others looked hard for more clues, but there weren't any in sight. Either this Jude Doe took the evidence with him or her when they left, or more likely considering Ethan was at fault here, he could have won the fight and disposed of the body and the evidence, but that wouldn't make sense. If Ethan was the one to dispose of the evidence, then why leave the message intact? Perhaps it was a personal thing.

Ethan was making people write out their final words for a reason, so if I had to guess, it could be a trophy. It's a common thing for serial killers to keep behind trophies of their victims, so it was quite likely he left it here. There is another thing that gives more to Ethan, that being it is a common name. Most of us in our friend group have pretty uncommon names, some being the only people in their countries with that name, but Ethan is different.

Especially in Stonemill, Ethan and similar names are fairly common, and you're likely to bump into at least one Ethan on your daily commute. Coleridge isn't an uncommon last name either. Not too much of us have uncommon last names, but the ones who do or don't have last names at all have the luxury of not being associated with other people who might share your name.

If you're named after a place like Coleridge, Yina, Shay, Cimarie, Arexis, Armiss, or even the name of a large family, like Entra, Mars, Reyurio, Tasdurst, or Kiff, even if you're a part of those family names or if you're living in one of those places, it's quite likely you'll see others who aren't associated with you or your family / city that are going around toting your name because they saw it somewhere and liked it.

People change their names all the time, and when you change your last name, every living direct family member who has the changing name as their last name has to agree on the switch. For most people, that's too much work so they tack on another middle name and put their middle name as their last name on official documents, because you can do that for some reason.

There isn't much keeping you from changing your name, just head over to the naming office and they got you covered, but it's not guaranteed you'll get the name you want. They have some weird archaic process or maybe even a list of sorts that assigns people names at birth, and if you're changing your name, it's gotta fit. If they don't like your name they can deny the change and force you to choose a new name or get your ass out of their office.

Although I don't know anyone in the naming business and I'd love to get to know what they do there, I do know that Ethan is a fairly common first name and Coleridge is a fairly common last name, though it's likely our Ethan Coleridge isn't from the real Coleridge, seeing as that's the capitol of Utreisal Sands which is a fairly small country located about halfway across the world.

Ethan was not by any means a stupid guy, and Jude knew this well. He was calculated and cold-blooded, and Jude had a nasty hunch that Ethan had kept him alive for a reason. He didn't want to think of what he could have left him alive for, and there was no way he could truly know, because he could not go right ahead and ask him what he kept him alive for. He was dangerous, unpredictable, and very elusive at that. If the man didn't want to be found, he might as well be invisible.

There wasn't really anything Jude or the others could do other than try to find a way out of the woods, The area they had gotten themselves into was quite isolated part of the woods, and although they didn't know it then, they were heading due west towards the great mountains of Northern Stonemill. At the end of the day, they had all been quite tired of running all day, and it was time to sleep. Luckily, the found a good place to stop that night.

...

Everything was dark here. Was he sure this was the place to meet? I made sure that I was aware I was dreaming, as that was the only way to get this to work. I've been communicating with my pen-pal for a while up to this, but we'd never been able to directly communicate with each other reliably or accurately from a time standpoint. According to him, this was the only way we could actually get this to work, and I was quite excited about it.

I walked around in an empty plane until I spotted him. He was sitting down on the ground facing me, and waved to me as I approached him. I sat down in front of him and we both looked at each other in awkward silence before one of us decided to speak.

"Hello, it's cool to finally meet you," I said.

"Same to you, Corrie."

"Wait.. you look and sound quite a lot like me, do I have a twin?"

"No, I'm not your twin, it's something more rare."

"Huh"

"Well you see, I am a reality clone of you."

"So like, a clone of me from another reality? With similar experiences but obvious variations?"

"Yes exactly. I'm surprised you know about other realities,"

"Well I didn't until just now,"

"So I should tell you that apparently there are at least thee realities, and you're in the first one. Technically speaking, yours was the first made, but that doesn't mean events in your reality are the first chronologically."

"We were the first made, huh? So that's what's so special about it. I've heard it referred to as Reality M in books for super smart people, could that suggest multiple others?"

"Well, I don't know for sure, all I do know is that there is a Reality K, which I'm in and a Reality T."

"Wait, so if there's a clone in each reality of me, could we possibly meet this T clone of me?"

"... look Corrie, there some things I am allowed to tell you, and some things I cannot."

"What?"

"Yes I'm not allowed to tell you certain things yet, because I have to let you figure them out yourself, but I am more than willing to help you than they are willing to help me, so consider yourself lucky."

"I appreciate it, and I guess it doesn't matter seeing as he's isolated in another reality. How much damage could one Corrie do?"

"Anyways, we still have a lot to talk about, do you have any questions before we begin?"

"Well I do have one. Do you think Jude is alright? He went home with Ethan, and I don't really trust him."

"Sorry, I don't know a Jude or Ethan."

"Oh, let's commence then!"

I won't bore you with our conversation, as most of the relevance it would have held is gone, seeing as stories previous have already revealed every detail about it. It was nice to get to know my reality twin though, and I looked forward to meeting him again. It was fun, but I was still worried for Jude. I wondered if he was alright, I hoped he was. No matter how hard I hoped though, I still knew he wasn't safe, I just hoped he was alive at least.

## Seamark Ironhall, IZ 144/6/76 (K), Keladay, December 19, Lizzie Shay - In too Deep -

"One man, a man with no eyes, a man from deep into the forest, he is here. Nobody seems to know about this man, however he has power. The mansion he lived in was where I took shelter, knowing full-well it would only prolong the inevitable. As I write this, I can hear him. Everything about him only brings about more questions, or pure terror. It's unlike me to be scared, but I feel it now more than ever.

So that my death may not remain a mystery, I am telling you now that there is no mystery in the way I may die. Although the man in question is a strange one, shrouded in dark clouds of the occult and intrigue, as well as a sense of blind fear. I do not know why or how, but he has rewired my brain, bending the nerves to serve me with an otherworldly terror. I can hardly see the paper or the keys as I type through tears.

I had never been part of the religious, but in these moments I pray only that if there is a god up there, that they may have mercy upon by soul, yet I also begin to realise. If there is someone above all, someone to be feared, than surely it is this man. Although I do not know much about this man, it's much more than anyone else seems to ever know. The name of the man in ques"

The words ended right there. I had seen these same words many times over in the past, and this was just another time, yet it felt very different. The short text is known as Sherim's Last Address, named after the man who wrote it. Not much is known about it, other than the part everyone knows, which is that it was found stuck inside of a typewriter in an abandoned mansion. Due to the abrupt end of the text, nobody knows who it refers to.

The text was never finished because its author was found dead beside the same device that wrote his last words. He had no eyes, and he had been stabbed 106 times according to the autopsy report. The man in question, Sherim Zabotta was a man who some would say stuck his nose where it did not belong. He researched the greater mysteries of the world, especially the occult and higher powers.

Sherim seemed to be a nut to a lot of people, but he really knew what he was going on about, and there seemed to be plenty of proof to back him up. I've been a follower of his, being part of the rebellion and all, and that seems to make a lot of people mad at you, especially higher-ups. There are a lot of theories that someone was sent to off him, but I personally do not believe that.

It seems to me like someone on his own accord decided to go after him for whatever reason they might have. I'd always been enthralled by the text and the legend of this man of higher power, someone who seemingly instills some kind of otherworldly terror in whoever was unlucky enough to cross his path, and I've always held deep in my heart, a particular interest for this man, for Him as he would be referred to as.

This particular copy of Sherim's Last Address was embedded in the words of a peculiar notebook that I had found in a library in Stonemill on my visit. It was full of many different notes about various things, and it seemed to document the steps of a boy on a rather infamous day, where the disappearance of a man had caused many problems, riots and outrage, especially in Kat, Stonemill.

Although it was months ago that I found it, and I was pretty far from said library, the unfinished log that I found in the basement of a random library would seem to suggest a peculiar story, however I wished not to release it. The note was obviously dropped at some point, and the author seemed to wish that these events never go public, so I chose to hold onto the book to prevent a person of lower moral standing to go against these wishes.

His case was one that had always interested me since I found the book, not that it did not before. I always held interest in strange things like that, and I always hoped I would meet the people involved, however I feared that would never happen. I didn't want to go deeper into the underbelly of the mysterious library in Kat, because whatever was down there made at least one person disappear completely.

I had some other things to deal with in the meantime, most importantly getting out of this base. It was not like I was being held captive or anything of the sort, it was just that there was nowhere else to go for the time being. My home is in concerning proximity of Charlie District, and I would not want to risk getting caught by police and get a bullet between the eyes, but I couldn't resist the urge.

At this point, there were only a few others still here at the base. Other than me, Cassie, Koko, Aster, and Noah were still taking refuge here at the base. I assumed they didn't have a home to go to, and if I did not either then I would come back. I left shortly after giving them all a goodbye, and letting them know that if they don't hear from me in a while, then I was likely six feet under, however I would try to not make that a possibility.

I didn't have a car, obviously but I did have a motorcycle which I used as my main mode of transportation. I pulled it out of my pocket dimension, being one of the only things stored in there, and sped off towards Seamark, where I would hopefully find home again, or my brother Lio. I hadn't seen him in ages and occasionally I feared the worst, but I knew that would not be the case, at least I had hope it was not.

The journey into Seamark was rather uneventful, but when I got into town, things got more interesting. I had to make a choice on my route from there, and it was two simple options. I could go the short way, which was through Charlie District, or I could go the long way to get there. It may seem obvious to suck it up and take the long way around, but I wanted to see if there was still anything there.. or anyone.

I slowed down a bit on my bike and coasted through the empty streets. I passed by the park where their disastrous rally was held, and it seemed like all of the evidence was removed. I half expected it to be all gone, but I also wanted to see something, or at least someone I could help. The plaza was eerily empty, and heavy gusts of wind were soaring through the courtyard.

I expected to find something or at least someone, but all I could find was loneliness. A cruel realization was that there was likely nobody left, but I still had to keep looking. I knew Mars was still being held somewhere within this district, but I had no way of knowing where, and no matter how loud I called, there was never any response. Maybe she couldn't yell out? Or maybe I was looking in the wrong place?

Even though this journey was quickly seeming like nothing would come of it, I wasn't one to back down from a challenge. I felt like I was supposed to be here, so it made sense in my mind that I could be the one to find Mars, or at least get some information about her, but unfortunately it was a fruitless effort. It seemed that wherever she was hiding was nestled somewhere deep into an alleyway that I would never have gone down.

The midday sun had set by the time I decided to call off my own personal search, when I saw something rather peculiar, well heard something peculiar. Dusk had painted the sky black and purple, and the hum of streetlights was the only sound about, at least until I heard something else. It was very, very faint but I could make out singing, somewhere below the street.

Although at first I walked around like a madman trying to pinpoint the sound, I caught the scent rather quickly and started following it. Following the sound led me to a rusted sewer grate on the side of the empty road. I stepped over to it and pressed my head to the cold metal and determined for sure it was the source of the music I was hearing. I thought I was going mad when I first heard it, but this confirmed it to be real.

Because of the years of rain this place gets, the metal was likely rusted right through. Although there's never snow in this part of Seamark for some reason, it tends to get pretty icy, so some of the roads that get any use at all like this one were salted. The chemical compound that makes up the road salt is pretty harmful to architecture, but pretty helpful in my quest to investigate.

I jumped up three times, and on the third I fell right through and barely caught myself on the metal ladder. I expected it to be cooler down there, but it was quite warm. I descended down into what at first seemed like a normal sewer system. Although whoever was singing down here likely heard the commotion I had just caused, the music persisted, allowing me to track them down quite easily.

When I turned the corner, the whole scenery changed. There was an open doorway that lead to a very fancy room. There were billiard tables, a bar, fancy chairs and tables, and many other very fancy things. There wasn't a single soul in the room, and the source of the sound was a lone gramophone sitting on a table in the back of the room, separated from everything else except for a grandfather clock which stood next to it.

There were a stack of records sitting on a stool below the table, all of which seemed to be covered in dust. Something about the room felt off, and I had a feeling I was walking into a trap. The room felt hostile, yet all was still. The pops and cracks of the record spinning on the gramophone seemed to slowly get louder, and the sound seemed to become more and more harsh.

At a similar pace to the sharp decline in quality, I slowly made my way across the room and towards the old record player at the other end of the room. By the time I got there, it seemed like the record had gone back to normal, almost as if there was no change at all. I raised my hand to turn off the record, but I felt hesitant. It was like a flash of dread came over my head, but I didn't head the warning.

I gently raised the needle from the disc, causing the music to cease completely. I rested it to the side and grabbed the empty sleeve that was laying at the top of the pile and set it on the table. Carefully I raised the record off of the table and placed it gently in the sleeve, resting it back on top of the pile. The instant I laid it down, all of the lights turned off and the ambience of the room cut out.

It was pitch black and dead silent. It was a trap, just like I had thought. It was rather foolish of me to come into this place knowing full well I wasn't welcome. I thought about taking out my flashlight, but I knew that if I wasn't alone that giving away my position would be a very, very risky idea. Although it was dark, I could still just barely see, and I could hear just fine so I wasn't completely blocked out from reality.

Most of the time, you would expect both your hearing and your vision to go, but this time it was just my vision, and it was slowly coming back, but it'd be a while before I could rely on it. I had to try and figure out my place in this room as best as possible in the meantime. It was quiet, too quiet. The only sound was the distant sound of rushing water and air going through vents, but then there was something else.

Distant and indistinct at first, but it began grew louder and louder. The combined sound of humming and footsteps began to approach, and I could feel my heart dropping. The footsteps got close and then they came into the room and stopped. I was crouched between a table and a chair, completely out of sight from whoever had come into the room. I stayed completely still, and waited for them to leave, but to my surprise, they started talking to me in a fairly casual manner.

"Hey, I know you're in here. The lights only turn off if someone turns off the record, and I sure as hell didn't, so you might as well come out."

"..."

"Yeah, I know I don not seem very trustworthy, but I can explain,"

"... go on,"

"Ah so you are here,"

"explain to me why I should come out,"

"Fine then Ms. You see, unlike many others of my species and despite my appearance, I would not harm someone who is innocent. Someone who is guilty however, that is where I draw the line! I have committed myself to ridding the world of the worst people, and from what I can tell you do not seem like a terrible person, so why worry?"

"First of all, how can you be sure? Second of all, why should I trust you?"

"To answer your first question, I am really good at finding things, whether it be finding things physically or using a natural gift of a great intuition to find more intrinsic things. Of course, I would do a lot of research before I go through with killing a person if I am not completely sure, but my intuition was correct every time. To answer your second question, possibly if I ramble on for long enough you will see that I would have no reason to keep up such a lie."

"hmm, alright then, but one more thing. Tell me again why you are doing all of this? What's your pitch?"

"My power from birth was being great at finding things, so not to let that go to waste, I used my gifts to enact justice when nobody else did. There are a lot of terrible people in this world, some corrupted some not. I have made it my goal to rid this world of such people, by either destroying their evil souls, or at least beating the corruption out of them without outright murdering them which seems to be possible. I do believe in second chances for some people, such as the corrupted and if I can save them then I will, but if they are beyond saving then they do not deserve to live in my eyes."

"That is very admirable, being a carrier of justice. You remind me of a younger version of myself, one who thought everyone deserved a second chance, that everyone was worth saving no matter what, that I could be a bringer of justice as well, but I grew out of that phase. I realized that there were a lot of evil people in this world, possibly even more than the good, and that even most of the corrupted were not worth saving, because most of them are too far gone, at least from what I've been able to tell."

I came up and grabbed onto the chair, my eyes adjusting to the darkness. I flipped it around and sat on it, facing towards them to get a better look at them. They seemed to be a coronian, resembling a badger or some other small mammal with the addition of large horns, but their fur was pitch black and their eyes shone a dim shallow yellow which seemed to switch between that and a washed out orange. They looked on with an expression of intrigue and slight sadness.

"To each their own beliefs I guess, but no matter how childish it may seem, it's what I believe. If nobody else is distributing justice, then I thought that someone might as well. If not me, then who else?"

"You do not really seem like someone who would be evil,"

"I see myself as that. You know, big coronian, very dark fur, color changing corneas, big horns. I look a lot like a splitter. I'm terrifying to the average person, so I'm genuinely surprised you'd say that."

"Maybe you are part splitter or something."

"Now that you mention it, maybe It is possible. I never knew my parents so I can't ever be sure."

"Could you not look for them?"

"It doesn't really work like that unfortunately. I need a specific name or the look of an object to use as a reference point. I'll find out a person's name and then I use that to find them, but unfortunately because I do not know their names or at all what they look like, I can't look for them even if I wanted."

"Well that is certainly unfortunate,"

"Is there anyone you were looking for at all?"

"Well yes. I actually came here to look for someone, but there's another I would like to know the whereabouts of."

"Who is it? I'd like a name and if needed I'll ask you for a description as well."

"His name is Lio Shay, and he's my brother. Long black hair, pretty short, mid teens, deep blue eyes and rich blue blood."

"Alright, that should be enough. Let me do my thing,"

They sat down on the ground in front of me, legs crossed and arms rested onto their legs. They took a deep inhale, and closed their eyes. At first, nothing happened but then they slowly began to rise above the ground. As they floated up, their lower body stayed stationary but their arms lifted up as if they were on top of a raised surface. I could see their eyes moving around under their eyelids. After a minute or so, they opened their eyes and fell back down to the ground, landing perfectly on their feet. Their full height was intimidating from so close, even though we were spaced about a meter apart.

"I found him."

"Really? Where is he and is he alright?"

"He doesn't appear too harmed, but he seems to be in hiding. He's sitting in an abandoned Kosoda in Rosedell, specifically located at 25 Mountain Road."

"Rosedell? How the fuck did he get there? And on the run? I always have to make sure he does not get into trouble, and then I get captured by some jerks and he ends up in Rosedell. I should write him a letter and send it to him."

"We 100% could, you know, and I can send it."

"How?"

"I can use spell circles to create a wormhole that can transfer small objects which comes in useful very often."

I wrote a short letter for Lio, and then folded the piece of paper and placed it on the ground. We drew a circle around it and sent it away to his location. They watched to see if he received it, and we confirmed that he had read it. He seemed to be very excited to know I was alright and startled by its sudden appearance, and I was just as I was excited to know he was alright as well. It was nice that the both of us could share a moment of happiness together, even if we were separated by miles and miles and miles.

We made a decision that we were going to get out of this place and somewhere that we could use as a sort of base of operations, but before that, there was still more to do. They asked me if there was anyone else who I wanted them to look for, and I said yes. I had come here to Charlie district to look for Mars, so that's who I told them to look for, seeing as they had obviously found a great hiding place.

"Is there anyone else you want me to look for?"

"Yes, there is one, the one I came here to look for. Her name is Mars Cellio, tall, long black curly hair, mid to late twenties but she looks rather young."

They sat down on the ground in the same way as before, seated with crossed legs and arms crossed. They floated up in the same way, their eyes closed rapidly searching in a process that I could not possibly understand. It seemed to be taking a while though, and when he opened up his eyes and landed on the ground, he had a confused expression on his face. I waited for his response in tension.

"Hmm, well this is odd,"

"What is it?"

"I can detect them. They are certainly nearby, but I can't pinpoint an exact location"

"How can that be? Do you know?"

"Well yes, I do know roughly why it could be. When someone is in a spell-sealed area, I can't reliably locate them. I can detect that she is roughly at street level, and that she is probably near or in an abandoned building near the plaza not too far from here, but the exact building I cannot tell."

"Seems like she got herself in some situation huh,"

"It would seem that way,"

Now that all of the searching for people was out of the way, we decided to get out of this place and head to somewhere we could use as a base of operations, and luckily, they had a place in mind that was not too far from the exit from the sewer system. As we walked down the snaking halls, we talked to each other, learning a lot about each other.

Their name was Leaphus and they were quite old. They told me that they were 228 years old, which is very old for a coronian or pandorian. They told me it was because they tended to hide away in places such as this sewer system where they could stay away from anything that could harm them, not to mention they seemed to have a great immune system allowing them to be the perfect bringer of justice, and maybe some more supernatural qualities too, which only made my suspicions of them being part-splitter a lot stronger.

We told each other a lot about ourselves, possibly a bit more than some would normally tell another they had just met, but it only seemed natural seeing as we planned to be working together to carry out justice wherever we went. Although they didn't say they needed help and they were quite skilled on their own, it does not hurt to have a partner in crime. We got along well with each other so it seemed that this arrangement could work well.

As we continued though, Leaphus stopped abruptly. They had a concerned look on their face, and spoke in an ominous tone "there's someone else here." I immediately stopped in my tracks and went into attack mode. I stuck to the wall, and the both of us slowly walked forwards. We weren't too far from the ladder to street level, but we were not safe yet, especially because we could not see the apparent threat directly.

We approached a T-shaped intersection ahead that we both hesitated to turn onto. There were a couple of rooms in this part of the sewer system, and the exit was at the end of a short reverse L-shaped corner which was just up ahead. We were both silent, and Leaphus peeked around the corner first, noting that there was a room opposite of the exit. There was one door on either side of the short hallway.

Leaphus walked forwards first, claws out with their fists positioned above their head, slowly walking towards the exit and turning the corner. As they turned the corner ahead, I turned the first corner onto the final stretch. They turned around for a moment, and in that second, a stalker burst out of the room behind them and extended its claws. We were both quite shocked, and the two begun to fight.

I wanted to step in, but I decided to let them fight for a moment so I didn't hurt Leaphus. Both of them slashed each other a couple of times but it seemed like Leaphus was winning, until the stalker grabbed them. They were stuck in a hold of tendrils made of pure shadow and all I could see was the fear on their face. The stalker walked close to their neck, grabbing it and getting in position to stab them. I knew that this was my time to step in.

Turning the corner and drawing my gun, I went up behind the stalker and called out to it. The stalker turned around and stared at me and spoke mockingly, "Oh what's this? A small fragile little girl with a gun? Do you even know how-" I did not waste a single second, and I put a bullet into its right eye, just barely missing Leaphus' head. The thing's expression of mockery changed to a horrified one as it died.

It turned into dust, cracking and dissolving from its core located on the left side of its chest. We both looked at each other with a shocked expression knowing that we had narrowly avoided death. Leaphus got mad at me for nearly shooting them, but we agreed that it was better to be nearly hit by a bullet than to be stabbed in the neck by a stalker. We took a moment to collect ourselves, and went on to get out of this sewer system.

"You ready to get out of this hellhole and start murdering some evil bastards?" they said.

"I was born ready! I'm ready to go after the worst people in the world!"

"You and I both know we can't. The most evil people in the world are the most powerful after all,"

"and the most powerful people in the world are the most evil. How could I forget that?"

"Any rebel worth their salt knows that by heart, and you seem to both be a rebel and one to know that well so please keep it in mind."

"Yes, you are right. I guess I got too excited,"

"Don't worry, there are plenty of less powerful evil people we can go after, but I have been keeping track of a couple of the more powerful ones which I'm watching out for, three to be specific. but they're only the most interesting out of a number of those which I have been watching, a few of which we can probably go after together."

"Tell me more about these three we need to watch out for."

"I will start with the first I've found. He is a man in his mid twenties who doesn't have a single care about life, acting on whatever horrible impulses he has. His name is Stephan Coleridge, and although it is a fairly common name, this particular Stephan Coleridge is a horrible man. I have watched him thoroughly, and unfortunately like the other two, I watched him do horrible things to someone, and although they survived, they barely did."

"Do you know who it was who survived?"

"Unfortunately I do not, but I really wish I did."

"Anyways, please continue."

"The second I have found is a mysterious yet powerful man. A young heir to the red kingdom, in a time where the kingdoms really don't matter much anymore. His name is Korro Yina, a young man who not much is known about due to his ties to the powerful and all but dissolved red kingdom. I have taken a lot of interest in the man not only due to his corruption and actions, but also to learn more about the red kingdom. It is all but gone similarly to the other kingdoms, however due to its much smaller size to begin with and its even fewer surviving members, I have a hunch that they could be behind that corrupt shadow organization you were telling me about that kidnapped you."

"That is a feasible possibility, I have thought about the same thing. Now please tell me about the third."

"The man with five names, someone you have likely heard good things about due to his charming nature, good looks, and "impeccable" reputation, but I have directly seen the contrary. His name is Lurio Marlotta Rose Karrie-Cellio Kiff, and he is a veteran from the GCW, however he would likely tell you a different story. He is a pathological liar, a psychopath, and likely a pervert and he is obviously also an awful man. He is a killer and he does whatever he pleases without consequence, because he uses his power and money to keep his image intact."

"Wow. I had heard of him but never anything suggesting he could be that horrible."

After I learned of all of the people Leaphus had been watching, we decided to leave the sewers. They led out into a different part of Seamark, another district over in the Bravo district, where most of the homeless population in Seamark lives, yet many large projects of various types have been built, most of which failing. All of these projects were on one side of the main road, where there is mostly countryside and large buildings, and on the other side is streets upon streets of abandoned apartment buildings.

Out of all of the massive buildings that litter the roadside plains and hills of Bravo district, only one of these projects was open, that being the recently StarWorld but that would eventually go the way of every other project in Bravo district and would end up abandoned eventually, but unlike the projects around it, StarWorld would have a much larger impact in multiple ways, likely not being forgotten nearly as soon as the other projects.

We walked down the broad shared pathway down the main road, heading towards the place Leaphus had chosen. It was a building that was once used as a sort of food court, except it was detached from a mall or some other public building and in the middle of nowhere. Even though it started as a soup kitchen, at a certain point to try and make more money it was shut down for seemingly no reason. They were making a lot of money and the business was very well known and beloved, but they seemingly went under.

Although I had never thought about it before, it seems like a lot of these projects in Bravo district were shut down for no apparent reason even if the business was doing great, was very well known, or both. I sensed some sort of cover-up operation going on, or likely more of Seamark not televising its larger scale crimes for whatever reason. A lot of bad things happen in Seamark, and even the largest events do not get any media attention, with a few exceptions of course.

Alleyway 37 and the Charlie District Massacre were some of the only large tragedies that occurred in Seamark which received any media attention, when bad things happen all of the time in Seamark. Large loss of life events such as those tend to be more rare and due to their scale are more commonly televised. People say that if you can dream up any horrible crime, that it has happened in Seamark at one point in time. They are not entirely wrong.

As we approached the building, its grim frame came into view. The building was very square with small partitions that came out of the center of either side, leading into the middle. We walked towards the closest of the four entrances and went inside. The walkway towards the main building had a long skylight, extending from door to door, illuminating the walkway into the main portion. We passed by locked doors on the side walls of the hallway and to the door leading inside the main building.

The inside seemed almost frozen in time. It was a circular room with food courts all around the perimeter. There were benches and tables all around the room. The surfaces all around were rather dirty, but it did not matter at all because we were not going to stay in the food court. Leaphus walked us towards one of the food booths where we hopped over the counter and walked inside the area behind it.

Behind this particular stall was the entrance to a basement area which I thought may have been used for storage, but according to Leaphus, it was rather different. This place had a bad history, being used as a front for some series of crimes, although not even Leaphus knew what happened here. It was the perfect place, an underground space where nobody would look for us, where there was plenty of space to make ourselves at home, or plenty of space for someone to commit horrible crimes.

It would take us a couple of weeks, but we begun to set up our base of operations which became full of furniture and artifacts Leaphus had collected on his various missions to make the room feel more full. We had spent a while developing our home base that we did not have enough time to look for anyone for a while. Once we were done though, I was ready to go hunting. I was ready to look for Lio too, but I knew that would be rather difficult, but I am not one to back down from a good challenge.

## Port Maroon, Telimo, IZ 144/6/76 (M), Tuesday, December 23, Cassie Lishir - Northern Distance -

Small-town life tends to be quite quaint, and I've viewed most of my life as such. Just another random kid in a small town, destined for a mediocre life in one of the most remote places on the entire planet. Port Maroon is the Northernmost inhabited town on the planet, the only settlement on the small island nation of Telimo. The island is located not too far South of Telkomi Island's shores.

While islands like Telkomi and Anatomili are technically countries, they haven't ever been inhabited due to their hostile conditions and air of mystery. All of the islands in the Northernmost and Southernmost ring of the planet have always been cloaked in strange legends of weird creatures and dangerous phenomena, but I never really bought into all of that, because Telimo is pretty normal, or as normal as one of the most remote civilizations can be.

And normal to one of the most remote civilizations on the planet is quite different from what normal is in one of the most populated places around. Our small town is home to just over 1200 people, all of which share a pretty interesting quirk. Port Maroon is home to entirely flame elementals, all except for one. You're smart enough to know how most stories like this go, so it's no surprise that I'm the one person in town who isn't a flamey boy.

Typically, elementals are a minority among pandorian and pandoreals, and even then there's a specific percentage for any given person to be born with a specific power. Their elemental alignment is decided on birth and not by chance, but you get the picture. It's pretty common knowledge that specific powers can be passed down genetically, without exception, most of the time. Or maybe never, I'm not fully sure.

All I know is that I am an exception to the rule, and there was one other person who was in a similar situation as I was. His name was Erebus Ross, and I've always looked up to him. He tried to keep his secret well, not knowing what punishment would befall him, but eventually he accidentally revealed his powers, causing him to be captured. He was slated to be burnt at the steak, rather fitting for flame town, but he managed to get away at the last moment.

Just like me, he was a young man having to deal with all of this pressure, being only seventeen when he vanished into the wind, and just like me, he was a wind elemental. All of this happened 8 years ago, to the day in fact. Well, the day this story is taking place, but I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. Whatever where was I? Oh right, the fact that the whole Erebus situation happened 8 years ago to the day.

Why is that so important you ask? Because they somehow found out I was a windy boy today. I have no clue how, and I've kept my admittedly slightly obsessive admiration of Erebus very secret to my family, because I'm sure they would be able to deduce it if they found out. Unluckily for me, they were rather swift in rounding up a mob to come to my now abandoned home to come and get me.

Unluckily for them though, I had a feeling this would happen today. It's strange how much your gut can tell you. Not wanting to become a windy well-done boysteak by sundown, I took a few essentials and bolted. I jumped out of the window and ran as far as I could. Normally, the town is kept warm enough by fire magic that you could wear short clothes even though you're 80 degrees North, but I had forgotten about this small fact in my haste to leave.

I bolted through the thick snow for what felt like hours, using my wind magic to cover up my tracks. I wasn't too sure if I was in the clear at any point, so I just kept running, until I found a short rocky mountain range jutting out of the stone. It was shaped almost like a horseshoe, so I ran behind one of the arms to get out of their line of sight. I was pretty sure blowing around all of that snow covered my tracks and my little body pretty well from prying eyes, but I wasn't too sure.

Port Maroon is a town full of smart people, and it wouldn't take too long for them to figure out where I went, even less time if I didn't find a good place to hide, and luckily for me, that wasn't too hard. Purely by chance, I managed to find a cave entrance that was pretty hard to make out as one. I could barely fit through the rocks that formed around the tiny entrance to the cave.

The inside was much warmer than I expected it to be, but it was rather cool still. When I was finally safe, I started to calm down and take some note of my surroundings and the situation I had just gotten into. It was in no way at all my fault, but I couldn't help to blame myself. The only thing I did was get my ass out of there and now I needed to find out where to go from there.

There wasn't much in the cave at all, only a bunch of rocks and dead branches, and worryingly bones. I tried not to worry about it, and I did my best to get settled in what I thought would become a new home. It was good hindsight that I brought a sleeping bag with me, because I wouldn't want to have to sleep on the cold, hard, cave floor for however many nights I would have to. That number turned out to be only two.

Night One was difficult and it took me a while to get settled into bed, but I had a good rest and woke up fine in the morning. The day was pretty uneventful, mainly consisting of making nobody was after me and that the entrance was adequately snow-blown, as to make it less obvious. It was when the day turned to the night that things got interesting.

Night Two was when I realised I wasn't alone. While I was trying to fall asleep, I heard shuffling in some far-off distant part of the cave. I didn't want to investigate without sleep, so I justified it as just a mouse or something. It still took a while for me to fall asleep, because I knew it wasn't a mouse or something small. It was later in the day that I would finally go to investigate.

Night Three marked the end of a day that had been wasted, due to me completely forgetting to investigate the noise. I didn't want to wait any longer, so I took out my flashlight and wandered through, hoping to get some closure. As I ventured deeper, the cave seemed to get larger and larger. After a while, I was able to make out some rushing water, and I went to check it out. I was surprised to find a river running through a cave, but my astonishment was cut short.

I heard the unmistakable sound of a heavy paw hitting the ground. Whatever was here was big, and probably hungry. I turned around, but nothing was there. Could I have imagined it? I doubted it. I started having a panic attack and I stood there for a whole minute trying to calm myself down. As I calmed myself down, an awful wave of dread washed over me. I felt scared, but of what?

I tossed my flashlight and it landed on the cave floor with a hard clack. There was no sound but the rushing river not too far from where I was. Everything was still for a moment. The flashlight was pointed towards me, casting a bright light on the cave wall behind me. I turned my head to face the wall for a second and I thought I saw something move. I wheeled my entire body around to face the wall, and my shadow was much larger and shaped differently.

Before I even had the chance to register what happened, the beast grabbed me. It held me in its massive arms and howled at me. I knew exactly what this thing was. It was a creature of legend called a telliminse, or just mins for short. They're similar to lupine coronians, except for the fact that they are all black and have some strange powers, as well as an appetite.

It's been said that they swallow people whole just for the fun of it, just to feel them try to escape, and others believe they slowly consume their prey. Whatever it was they do I was about to find out. It's jaw seemingly unhinged and opened like a door to a black hole. It swallowed me whole in one gulp, and that was it. I fell right down into it, and then I passed out. All I could remember was it being pitch dark and slimy.

Though I thought I wouldn't, I woke up again. I wasn't in its belly, I was somewhere completely different. The thing was holding me like a baby, and we were both sitting at the top of a tree. I couldn't move my body, but I could move my head. I looked around and felt the vertigo start to kick in as I realized how high up we were. I wanted to shout, but something in me told me not to, so I tried to talk to it.

I spoke to the beast as it held me in its arms, and although it didn't respond with speech, it seemed to understand what I was saying. I didn't say much to it, but I did try to ask it why it took me and where we were going to. When I asked the latter, it pointed off into the distance, seemingly to wherever we were going. Although I was still afraid of it, it didn't seem to be hostile, and it even helped me escape from Telkomi, which I made sure to thank it for.

We stayed up in the tree there for a while until I fell back asleep and woke up inside of it again, where I could feel us moving. It was pitch black in there but I could get a sense for where we were and where we were going by feeling and hearing the sounds of its footsteps on the ground. When I woke up, we seemed to be walking through a forest, but we eventually came up to a path which we continued down.

As we continued down the road, I could hear distant voices, faint at first but slowly growing louder. There seemed to be two people talking to each other, however the contents of their speech were a mystery to me. Even as we slowly got closer, it was still faint, and their words were still obscured by the thick walls of the telliminse. As we got closer, I begun to realize I might actually be able to get out of this thing.

The longer I spent inside of it, the more I grew fearful and worried that it was only carrying me to eat me later on, and that superstition is what drove me to want to try and call to these people for help. We were slowly but surely getting closer, so if I got the chance and if I was loud enough, I could probably get their attention, however it was a farfetched theory, seeing as outside sounds barely get through the beast.

After a short while though, we stopped in the middle of the road, and I felt the beast crouch down, pinning me down in an uncomfortable position. The two kept talking to each other though, so I started to think that either these people were oblivious, or this beast was really good at hiding in plain sight, either to hide itself or to ready itself to pounce on whoever was out there.

I saw this as my perfect opportunity, and I decided I would try and call for help now. I knew that it could be hopeless, and I didn't even know how far we were from these two or if there was anything obstructing us, but it was still worth a try. If I was able to barely make out their speaking voices from here, there's a chance a scream would carry, and so I called out.

"HELP!"

No reply. I'm not the type of person to back down though, so I prepared myself a bit better this time. I angled my head upwards to hopefully transfer the sound better than speaking into fat, fur, and muscle. I wanted to be sure my voice escaped the telliminse, so I took a couple of deep breaths to prepare myself, and then I shouted again at the top of my lungs.

"HELP!"

It seemed they heard it this time, and a smile flew across my face, however they didn't seem to make it out as a cry of help, but it was still progress. The beast didn't seem too impressed with my little stunt though, and it crouched lower to the ground and seemed to expand, crushing me inside of it. That only made my pleas more urgent, and I readied myself for a third one.

"SOMEBODY HELP ME PLEASE!"

That time it really worked, and they seemed to scramble in reaction to it. One went inside a nearby building while the other stayed outside, their voice shaking with fear. I wanted to try and warn them about the beast, but I knew if I called out again, I would only draw him in, and the telliminse would probably not like it either, seeing as it's only punished me for my last two attempts.

Right after I called out, the space I was in grew smaller, and I could feel my chest getting compressed. I didn't have much time and it seemed like it was slowly but surely getting more and more tight. I could hear very faint and muffled footsteps getting closer. It was only us and him, there were no signs of anyone else being out here, whoever else was here had seemingly been left out here to investigate.

I could easily visualize the scene; a man was walking towards a short wall or some other obstruction the telliminse was laid down behind, taking slow, shaky steps. His body trembling and fear in his eyes, he walked up to the obstruction, took in a deep breath and hoped around it, the second he did and came into view, the beast leapt up and pounced towards him, landing just in front of him.

He let out a loud scream which told me we were close. I could feel everything that was happening, seemingly getting more crushed now that we were in action. As it stood up, I begun to feel sharp pains around my body, but I tried to ignore them and hoped that I can get saved from here. I was starting to get a bit hopeless though, as to me there were only two people here, and one of them was gone.

The telliminse chased the boy around, and it seemed like it was faster than him, but before it could catch up, I heard a door open, and a couple of people emerged, with weapons drawn. The beast stopped in its tracks and boy seemed relieved, but then shit hit the fan. It was clear this big bastard knew its ticket was about to be punched, but it wasn't going down without a fight.

The beast ran towards them, and they all got ready to attack, but I could just barely make out one of them shouting something. Someone pointed out the fact that telliminse tended to carry people inside them, and sometimes they're still alive when they attack people, just like I was. It never occurred to me that I could have just been stabbed or shot in their efforts to kill the beast.

Their goal was to aim for the head or eyes, the best surefire way to kill it without harming me, but they'd have to do it fast. Every second, the space only grew smaller, and the sharp pain grew louder, appearing in new places too. It was clear that the beast didn't need or want me alive anymore, so it was trying to kill me for getting it killed. Afterall, I was the one who alerted the others.

It seemed like the beast was kicking their asses. I could feel it swiping and kicking at them as they tried to get close enough to hit it where it hurts. The beast was moving around a lot, so they would need rather good luck if they wanted to shoot it with a gun, although these beasts are massive which makes them somewhat easier to hit. I could feel every hit connect as the shock rippled through the entire body of the beast. Things were looking dire for myself and the others, and it only got worse.

In one swift movement, it kicked someone and grabbed another, lifting them high and biting onto them, holding them in its maw. This seemed to prompt urgency, and they managed to cut off its head and kill it before it could tear too much skin, although when its head dropped to the floor it effectively bit down on them. both of us dropped to the floor with its limp body, and I felt the cavity I was in expand and the sharp pains dissipate.

The boy who was stuck in its jaws was pried out of the thing's head, and as they pulled him out, I cried for help from inside its belly. They seemed to have heard me and they cut it open, pulling me out of a bloody and grimy mess. I took in deep breaths as I felt the warm night air on my body. I looked up at them, and they all seemed concerned and confused, just as much as I was.

I looked down and saw there was blood all over me, having bled through my shirt and pants from small wounds all over my body, likely being the source of all the sharp pains I felt, something not too different from the sensation of pins and needles pushing into me. My breaths felt full as my lungs were allowed to expand fully being let out of the beast. None of us said a word as we all stared at each other, myself being knelt on the ground beside the beast's corpse, the others being injured and standing around.

There were six or so others around me, one of them having a giant bite mark in their chest being held between two others. Seeing this ragged brotherhood after having just come out of the inside of a monster was inspiring in a weird way, and I was glad that I met these people. Just from a first glance, I could tell these were the type of people I would want to be with for a while, maybe even forever.

I was still in shock when they took me inside and seeing the inside of this beautiful mansion was almost dreamlike. I felt pretty lightheaded but that was probably from the blood loss. Shortly after being brought inside, I was taken to a medical room along with almost all of the others who were outside, being grouped on how serious our injuries were, mine being deemed the most severe.

There were some pretty good doctors in this small group which surprised me. I didn't even think there would be this many people around my age in this type of situation here anyways, not to mention them being way better at everything than me. Well, I had quite a mastery over my wind element, but these people seemed leagues better than me in more practical things, like medical and fighting skills.

After we were all in stable condition, I got to meet some of them properly. Their names were Pollux, Adries, Kosa, Nick, Yomaho, and Fury. Yomaho and Pollux were the two who were standing outside when the telliminse came up to them, and Pollux was the one who got bit. He seemed rather calm for having part of his torso missing, in fact I was the only one who seemed visibly shaken up, but that may be an experience thing.

All of the people here seemed to be more experienced in general life, even the people who were in my age group. Only Nick and Kosa of our hospital group were around my age, as well as one of the doctors named Joey who I assumed was born with some kind of healing ability, but these three seemed to be very advanced compared to people my age from my hometown, but maybe there's a good reason for that, and I decided to bring it up in conversation.

"So, why is it that the three of you who are in my age group, or at least I think so, how are you guys so good at everything?"

"What do you mean?" Nick responded.

"Well, from what I could tell during the fight you and Kosa seemed to be doing quite a lot, and you Joey are a pretty damn good nurse,"

"I don't really have a good response for that other than thank you I guess,"

"I'm thinking it has something to do with where I come from, that being Telkomi. It's pretty different up there,"

"Woah really? I thought you weren't allowed to leave the island? What's it like?"

"So basically it's entirely made of fire elementals and they use their powers to keep the town at a warm average temperature, but somehow I was born a wind elemental, and they really don't like that, in fact the last one was nearly murdered for being a wild elemental, but like me he escaped but he's somewhere else that I don't know. I managed to get saved in a way by the telliminse, although it turned on me when it came here.

I had some really high hopes that I could be saved when I heard Yomaho and Pollux talking, so I started calling out but you didn't hear me, and then you know the rest. From what I could feel, it was a pretty brutal fight, but I'm glad you guys managed to pull through and save me, I'm really grateful and I'm not sure if I'll be able to repay you for that."

"You don't need to repay us, we all help out each other and don't expect any physical reward from it. The only thing we expect from each other is respect and care, although sometimes boundaries are crossed and respect can be lost."

"Ah I see. That's great! I'm glad to be here."

It was a fun time getting to meet everyone in the group, especially when others came in to see us. People seemed very interested in my hometown, the journey I took inside a telliminse to get here, and my wind powers, although I felt kind of bad for not having anything to show for them. Just like Erebus did, I practiced them in private but I doubt I ever achieved the skill that he reached.

From the legends that were told about him, it seemed like he had been practicing them for a really long time. The way they talk about how he just flew away when they were about to catch him is so inspiring, but for many reasons I'll probably never get to know what it must have been like to escape like that. Hearing the legends of scorn told about Erebus has inspired me to keep practicing the wind, and so that's what I did.

It was rather early into the morning hours and as far as I could tell nearly everyone was asleep except for possibly Pollux who seemed to be shaking. I wanted to try and comfort but my social skills are awful and I have no confidence whatsoever so I would probably find a way to make him feel even worse. I decided to just keep quiet and try to concentrate on my wind powers on lifting an object, but I've always lifted small things.

I wanted to lift myself for a change, taking after what Erebus did. I know for sure that he either lifted himself, used gusts to propel himself, or likely a combination of both. I sat up on my bed in a butterfly position, rested my hands on my knees, closed my eyes, and concentrated really hard on trying to lift myself. At first I didn't feel anything, but as I begun to focus harder and harder, I could hear something.

It sounded like distant wind and lapping waves on a shoreline. As the soundscape grew louder, I could picture a place. It was unfamiliar and yet it still felt like home. I pictured myself in this place as well as focusing on lifting myself, and then I begun to feel my feet and legs begin to slowly lift off of the bed. As my focus briefly slipped I could feel the connection momentarily break, but I quickly reminded myself to focus.

The shoreline came back into view again, and the waves and wind sounded like they were all around me. Looking back at other times I used my wind powers, I could always vaguely hear the noise of distant winds but it was never this loud or accompanied by waves or any images of any sort. I felt a grin grow across my face, but I stayed focused on the image and the sound to keep the spell going.

Many times growing up, people would always teach the kids who still had to learn their flames about a 'happy place' of sorts. They said that not everyone can see a happy place, but those who do have a better mastery over their element and will be able to control it better, but they have to learn to tap into this in order to properly learn their powers. Apparently it was fairly common in our town at least, but they said it's very rare in the outside world.

I was always jealous of the other kids in my class for being able to either tap into their powers, see and feel their happy place, or both, but now I felt like I was on top of the world. All of the hatred and sorrow from not even too long ago didn't mean a thing to me now. I slowly opened up my eyes and tried to hold my focus, and I was genuinely surprised by what I'd done.

The room was bathed in a bright blue light which was emanating from the edges of my figure. I looked down and saw that I was floating high above my bed, my head just below the ceiling, and I saw Pollux staring up in disbelief and excitement. I held my focus and floated gently back down onto the bed and landed softly. I looked over at Pollux who gestured excitedly.

It looked like everyone else was asleep so we both silently expressed our excitement. I was really glad that at least someone had seen such an important moment for me was nice, especially someone who I had a natural connection with. The both of us were very badly injured by the same beast, and we seemed to have a lot of other things in common, as well as hitting it off quite well in conversation.

It was nice to have a friend, and later in the morning we talked quite a lot. I was very happy that for the first time I had a friend, and that we met right after I nearly died. It felt like I was really meant to be here. I felt a connection to Pollux and this place in general, like I had finally had a proper home where I was respected and loved. The whole mutual respect mantra was a big part of this, rather than the selfishness that ruled my hometown, well my old hometown. This was my hometown, for real this time.

## Serinota Cave, Old Yina, Stonemill, IZ 144/6/76 (M), Selkaday, December 40, Joey Niravia - The New Year Comes -

It was a beautiful evening in Stonemill. A cold breeze blew through the trees along the horizon. Corrie and I were sitting at the entrance to the coronian cave near Nomad's place, somewhere I would come to often to watch the night sky because it had the best view and wasn't too far from home. The other coronians were at a higher spot on the mount, but we decided to stick at the bottom to have a good one-on-one while we watched the fireworks that would be going off soon in the heart of downtown off to the East.

"We've come a long way, huh? This year's been pretty crazy" he said.

"You said it."

"Maybe the universe decided that we were not going to be insignificant anymore"

"That's pretty funny you say that, seeing as I've always thought of myself as being pretty insignificant, just a little bookworm girl and nothing more."

"I feel like everything that happened to us brought us closer together, speaking of our entire group here."

"I actually wanted to thank you for that by the way. I feel like everyone knowing each other snowballed from when you fell. It was actually a coincidence that Kiri and Kagiri were with Fury and I, they were just having a pick-nick and then you fell out of the sky."

"No problem, I guess. I wanted to thank you for being such a good leader to our group,"

"Oh come on, I'm not that good a leader! You're the leader here. You were able to take charge easily in many situations, especially when Adries came, and just the other day on the 35th when that weird thing came to the house and you started giving people orders."

"It's statements like that that make you the leader by the way. I think I'm just naturally a leader not a follower, but I don't think I'm that cut out for it in this group."

"You're a pretty smart dude, you know? You're probably even more of a bookworm than I am!"

"You are smart and a natural leader!"

"Maybe we're not so different, huh?"

"Maybe that's where the similarities end. I think we're pretty different."

"How so?"

"Well, there are some secrets about me, and I'm not too sure if I'm willing to share, but one of them is a big part of it."

"We all have secrets to some degree, is it like a small petty secret like a crush or something?"

"No, it's a big secret, well it wasn't always a secret."

"Explain,"

"On my home planet it was pretty public information about me, but I got hated by everyone for it, so I decided when I came here and had a fresh start I would not tell anyone."

"Corrie, and don't take offence to this, but are you gay?"

"What? No why would you be thinking that?"

"You said you have a big secret, so I was just guessing,"

"It's not really like that. It's not romantic at all in fact. Why did your mind go there instantly? Do you think I'm fruity?"

"I mean, kind of (haha)"

"I don't know how to respond to that,"

"You sound offended, do you have a problem with that?"

"Well no I don't, but now you're putting me into an awkward situation,"

"Yeah, my fault for that sorry. Anyways, do you have any other secrets?"

"Of course I do, but some of are just as big as me be- the other secret."

"You being what exactly?

"An average man, nothing to see here."

"You are anything but average. You're nerdy and adventurous and usually those don't mix."

"I have been told multiple times that I'm a dilemma, mainly because of the whole gardening thing."

"Oh yeah, I forgot about that. I can only guess you've been keeping up the foliage here."

"You bet!"

"Well it seems like you're doing a great job at it."

"Thank you. Now about your secrets, maybe I'll finally tell you what I really saw before I fell. It wasn't just a trip during a camping trip and then I rolled into a wormhole."

"Oh really? Please tell me what happened."

"So I really was on a camping trip and then I heard something following me. I turned around to see a coronian emerge from the darkness, wearing a long coat and staring creepily. That fucking grin I can't unsee. I could tell it was talking but I couldn't tell what it was saying. When I was running I actually did trip, and as I crawled back it chased me to a drop off and then the wormhole opened underneath me."

"Jeez I'm sorry that happened to you."

"It's fine, it was ages ago. I would normally say I'm over it but not really for this. That grin still haunts me and the telliminse that came to the house reminded me of it so much. It was horrifying to relive that, but I think I did well in handling it all."

"You really did, just like I said before. I think even the new kid who was inside it thought you did a good job at organizing everything."

"That 'new kid' has a name you know, it's Cassie. Have you even talked to him?"

"Nope. I haven't been talking to the newer members to the group to be honest, I'm not sure why. I'm sure they're fine people but I'm not really this used to being this social."

"I'm not either, so there's another similarity for you."

"Back to the secrets thing, we have a big similarity with those too. There are quite a lot of secrets I have which I can't share, but I can share a story I've kept secret for nearly all of my life."

"Oh really? Go ahead."

"So, like I've said I have told nobody, not even my closest friends, not even Fury, or at least not yet. I was like 7 or 8 years old, and at that time my living situation would be going back and forth between with my mother in a Kosoda Apartment in downtown Rosedell, and with my father at the Niravia Manor out in the country. I think I've taken you there before, and other than Fury, myself, and my other siblings, Pollux was the only one who I know has been there."

"Wait were your parents divorced or just living separately?"

"Living separately. There was a problem with work and so my mom decided to move out temporarily, and then they both moved out of the mansion and it fell into disrepair."

"Oh right you told me about that. Sorry I forgot."

"No worries."

"Anyways, please continue,"

"Right. So I was sleeping in my room which was on the back side of the second floor with this giant window that faced out into the countryside. My bed sat parallel to this brilliant window which would cast the small room in a sea of moonlight after dark. Whenever I would live at the manor, I would look out into the countryside at night all the time and just observe the horizon.

I would fall asleep while watching the horizon and watching the trees gently sway was very calming and would help me fall asleep. This particular night seemed to be normal, but clearly it wasn't. I was staring out into the trees watching them sway gently into the wind, but then they started moving weirdly. It looked like something was walking through them, but in order to move them like that it had to be very big.

I was pretty alarmed at first, but then the dread really begun to set in once I realized it was getting closer. I called for my dad who was watching television in a nearby room, and when he came in he was quite confused at first, but when I pointed out what was happening in the forest behind the house I could see an expression of fear wash over his face. I remember staring out into the forest watching it get closer, sitting still like a deer in headlights.

Time almost seemed to slow down in those moments, and as it begun to get really close to the backyard, I caught a few glimpses of the things face and eyes through the trees before my dad grabbed me and took me to the car. Fury who was the only other sibling with us had heard the commotion and ran out with us confused. My dad didn't say a word as he drove us to the apartment. He tucked us into bed that night and in the morning, he was gone.

Everyone but Fury was gone actually, even our mom who would usually wake us up. That also seemed to be the point of when the manor went into disrepair, seeing as almost everyone in the family had seemingly fallen out of the world. The whole everyone disappearing part was strange, but I think the strangest detail in my head was whatever the fuck it was that tore through the trees that night.

From the few glimpses I caught, I could immediately make out burning white pupils and a hellish grin, but probably not in the same way as your encounter. It had the exposed skull of what appeared to be a deer for a head with pitch black patches of what looked like rotten fur underneath it. The body was even more frightening because the thing was massive and stood up on two legs like a coronian, however this was no coronian.

As far as I know, coronians don't get anywhere near this big, and this thing was shredded too. The black patches didn't cover its chest which seemed to be dark grey or some shade of white, smeared in stains of dark color. I couldn't reliably make out anything else about it when I saw it just before emerging through the tree line other than deer-like horns, what appeared to be long claws on its hands, and scars all over its body.

On top of all of this, it looked pissed. It had a couple of arrows stuck into its body and clear wounds, but they appeared old. It was clear that some unfortunate people had encountered this thing throughout history and met their end at its hands. You talking about how the stare haunted you reminded me of my story because the stare haunts me too. It felt like it was staring into my soul. I saw it in my dreams occasionally too, but those are stories for another day."

"Wow. I don't even know what to say."

"I thought you'd say that, so here is a response for you: Wow that's very interesting. I wonder where your siblings went seeing as they seemed to have vanished completely."

"You even did the voice too, and for the record it does not sound like mine."

"Does too."

"Whatever. I think I'm more fascinated than scared really, and you know I love a good mystery."

"You really do haha."

"Wait."

"What is it?"

"How long ago did you say this was?"

"Well I was at the youngest 7, so at most 9 years ago, give or take."

"Something doesn't add up."

"Are you calling me a liar?"

"No, no. The house. Think about it for a second."

"..."

"Do you see it?"

"Oh shit you're right. How did that slip my mind?"

"When we went it did not click for me immediately either. You had told me that you would live there from time to time at some point before we went, and that this all stopped when you were around 7 or 8 which I now know the reason for. Although I did not know why, I still had a rough guestimate of the timeframe for when this house was left to rot and the more we explored, the more things seemed off to me about it.

First off, everything was in the-"

"-In the same place it was that night. Sorry for cutting you off."

"No worries I was about to ask if that was the case."

"It was so nobody could have damaged everything, or at least I highly doubt that, but it doesn't make sense either way."

"Yes exactly. It clicked when we saw that banged up and dirty mirror barely hanging onto the wall in the main foyer, although I did not say anything about it at the time because I did not know how to form a question like that, so I did not mention it and forgot about it later."

"Yeah I can see why. I wouldn't have a good response either. In fact I still don't have a satisfying answer to either of the questions."

"Also, how long did you two live in Rosedell before moving into the mansion?"

"Oh yeah, it was like 8 months or so before we moved out of the apartment and into the mansion."

"Was it uninhabited then?"

"Yes. Also I should explain how it came to be known as 'Fury Manor'. So some time after Fury was born, both of my parents decided that he would inherit because he was the oldest sibling. It was built a long time ago and it was inhabited by other people in the family for the years after. In the timeframe our parents disappeared it was inhabited by one of the more mysterious members of our family, however most of the people on our family are pretty mysterious.

Anyways, we were still in contact with him after everyone else disappeared and we told him what happened. He lived in the mansion for about four more months and gave us the permeant invitation, and so after another four months we moved in and that's where we lived ever since. After we moved into the mansion we assumed some other members of our family would take care of the place but there was nobody around to do so. Both of us never went."

"Not even Fury? Didn't he not see whatever it was that drove you all away?"

"Well, I forgot to mention this but he did see it too. The first night we moved into Fury Manor, he told me about it. When my dad was starting the car, he was seated in the right side which just so happened to be facing the house. He saw the thing emerge from the darkness behind the house and run right up to the car, but my dad drove away just in time to narrowly get away. From what I can gather he never told my dad."

"Holy shit. I cannot even imagine how horrifying that must have been. Can you approximate how tall it was?"

"From what Fury told me, its standing height put the top of its head at around the middle of the third level."

"Wow."

"Yeah. I think you can see why it kept me up and why my dad was so quick to get us out of there."

"Hmm. I am still very confused about this entire series of events. Do you think whatever it was could have caused all of it?"

"I have thought about that, but it all feels too coincidental for me. Now that you're talking about my family, I started thinking about yours. When you mentioned there was something going after you in the forest I had a bad thought."

"Yes, I have thought about the same thing. I have dreamt about it too, very vividly which draws my mind to the worse conclusion, although there is no real proof, and the creature never really attacked me. The most it did was intimidate me enough to stumble down a cliff and into a wormhole, so I am hoping that my family is alright."

"I hope so too. I guess we'll never be able to know, huh?"

"It would seem that way, unless we could somehow find a way back to Connitt, which I do not believe is possible for us 'common folk'."

"Yes, from what I know the only forms of inter-planetary communication are strictly available to the miliary and the upper crust."

"Unfortunate, though not all hope is lost. We do have some regulars to the manor who *might* have access to this, the most notable of whom are probably Fury or Nomad because to my knowledge they were both alive during the GCW."

"No he wasn't. He's in the military but he's not that old silly."

"If you do not mind me asking, how old is he?"

"Not sure, he never told me. I do know that his birthday is March 14 though, interestingly enough the same day the dark crystals were said to be found. Perhaps that's why he always had such a connection with the crystals."

"I love coincidences like that, coincidences are fun."

"You sure seem like the type of person who has a lot of fun,"

"What makes you say that? My hobbies are writing/journalism and gardening what's so fun about that?"

"Sarcasm, Corrie. Are you a robot or something?"

"I will not confirm nor deny those allegations."

"You're a real gem sometimes haha,"

"Thanks."

"Oh look, there are the fireworks!"

The two of us watched the fireworks in distant Downtown Brandon, reflecting on the four and a half months we spend together as we got lost in the colorful lightshow. To my knowledge, this was his first time seeing fireworks and he was really enthralled by it. I put my head on his shoulder but he didn't seem to notice, or he just didn't mind. There were stars in his eyes.

"Happy new year, Joey!" he said in his typical soft but excited and giddy voice.

"Happy new year, Corrie."

"I'm ready for another year, seeing everything that's happened so far makes me really want to start documenting everything, so I think I'll get a start on that, and I'm excited to see what the future holds for us."

"Only time will tell Cor, only time will tell."

"Did you just call me Cor? Like a shortform for my name?"

"Yes."

"I'm not sure how I feel about that in honesty."

"Let's just enjoy the fireworks."

"... fine."

That's the end of Chapter Five.

Chapter Six is Available Here.

"He did not come to school the next day, or the next. We all got really worried for him, and in the tension and panic caused by him being pronounced missing after not showing up for the second day in a row, everybody started accusing each other. I hated seeing all the tension just one disappearance brought and I really hoped that it wouldn't be like this in the future because I had a bad feeling that more people would disappear after Kosa.

Seeing all the mayhem even though momentary really made me want to disappear as well, but I couldn't leave them, they needed me, at least that is what my pen-pal told me. Like many things he said to me I was not sure exactly what it meant at the time but apparently I would "learn in due time," whatever that means. I was not going to willingly abandon my friends though, especially seeing all the fight they put up with for the good of everyone else.

I wanted to be like them but I could never be like them. Although many would find sadness and shame in those thoughts, I found beauty in it. I was separate from them in multiple ways, though I could not feel more connected by their compassion for me and each other and their drive to help out. I always viewed myself as an outsider, and the way they took me in and treated me as their equal made me love them, and only cemented my decision to never leave them no matter what."

- Corrie