Book One Chapter Four

# **Chapter IV: Downhill from Here**

"You're making me a bit more confused now, and frankly a bit scared. So I did see you, but the you that was off wasn't *you*, it was someone else? Like a Reality Clone? But that doesn't make any sense, because I'm in M and you're in K, so where is He? And you said you don't know what his name is, so let's just call him Him, for convenience. Hopefully that isn't too confusing.

Anyways, things aren't too bad over here. I'm sorry about what happened to your friend, I hope they find him soon. I can't imagine what it would be like to have one of your close friends vanish completely into thin air. Anyways, you're probably waking up now, so I'll stop bothering you. Have a good life and don't die, ok? And look out for your friends for me too. Knock em' dead or whatever you said to me!"

## Kosoda, Rosedell, IZ144/6/76 (K), Monday, November 22, 2058, Mercury Mars -Bad Decisions-

I stared out the window of the restaurant we sat in and out to the street. Thick snow blanketed the sidewalk and people walked on the road as not to get their shoes too wet. The sun was starting to set over the buildings, casing orange and purple hues over the city sky. I looked out the window and into the sky, because it was really nice to look at, and then Jaiden told me to stop staring at random people on the street.

"Mercury you barely touched your food, stop staring at the people outside!"

"I'm not! I'm looking at the sky, you know I'm a really big fan of sunsets,"

"Well I recommend you eat your food, because it is really good,"

Jaiden was right, the food was really good, and Cobalt seemed to enjoy it a lot too. Our group was pretty small, only consisting of five members. It was Jaiden, Crimson, Cobalt, Savarra, and obviously me. It wasn't our entire group of friends here in Rosedell, but it was a pretty good chunk of our group. The others who couldn't come had plans elsewhere, and one of them was in the hospital.

After we finished our meal, we packed up our stuff and left. Our waitress was nice so I left a big tip. Being from a pretty rich and more private family I've always had money to burn. I was always a pretty spoiled kid but when I started experiencing the real world, I learned pretty quickly that you don't always get what you want. I still cringe when I remember how stuck up and spoiled I used to be.

Thank goodness I got out of that phase. We all piled into my car, and I drove us back to my place. We hang out at my house a lot, because their parents let them and my house is absolutely huge, so why not, right? I pulled into the driveway and parked the car on the roundabout, slightly going over the snow bank to the side of the house. We walked in, and sat on the couch to talk for a while.

As we talked, the conversation got pretty deep. I was sharing my experience about how my family is affiliated with the mafia, and that's why we're so rich. I trusted them enough to tell them, and they were on our side anyways. I've always believed that if you want change, you shouldn't expect it to come naturally. People who want change need to rise up, and the way crime can go unregulated here in Rosedell is awful.

The corrupted get special treatment and the ability to escape the law, as well as having so much power to just roam free and do whatever they want. I'm clearly not the only person who believes that change is necessary, and that's why the mafia was formed. Ideas don't spread because they're good, they spread because people like them, and that ideal has always held true when rising up against your government.

Obviously, at this point we were still in the early stages of our plans to try and bring down the corruption in society. We knew the police were onto us, but there wasn't anything we could do about it at that point, other than try to be as secret as possible. Some have opted to hide underground, using the old tunnels and massive storage buildings that exist deep underground, built a long time ago.

Although they're old, they only stopped seeing use relatively recently, so they are practically perfect for use as a hideout, similar to how the corrupted coronians who built them used to use them, as well as the ones they currently use, being hidden deep in the forests around the major islands. Although a lot of us agree that using these is a pretty good plan, a different group of us have opted for a different approach.

There are two main groups of the mafia and they all tend to agree with each other, although one group, the one I'm part of likes to hide in plain sight, while the others use the hideouts that exist or hideouts they made, hidden all around the main islands. Stonemill and Ironhall have the most, although they've done a good job of hiding themselves in Stonemill which is really useful for the later stages of the plan.

I knew that there would be a police rally or something similar coming up, and me and my group decided we were going to crash it. We brought this up with the others, and they said it was a stupid idea, saying that we'd all get caught. Although he had a point, we knew what we were doing. We wouldn't be doing anything illegal, and there were too much of us to arrest all of us, and when I brought this up, they started to agree with me.

Jaiden still had his doubts, saying he didn't think it would be a good idea, although he didn't know why. I've never been the superstitious type, but quite a bit of my friends are. Although I didn't have much of a belief in it, I still felt like it had some truth. Even if it did have truth, it would take something pretty big to convince me. I've always been a huge skeptic, and I take everything with a grain of salt, sometimes I take it a bit too far.

When I heard about the boy who went missing in Stonemill a while ago, I immediately thought of foul play, but then they changed their story. Now it could be that they really did change their mind, but this being the Stonemill PD, I wasn't the most trusting of them. In my mind, they changed their story to keep people away from the truth, being that the police took him in and arrested him for something.

If you dig deep enough into the case online, you can find out police records which show that he was interrogated for a while, then released back to the library, and then he went missing. I had a theory that they changed their mind and arrested him again for whatever reason. They clearly had some interest if they wanted to interrogate him, however the reasons on why are unavailable and censored in the police report for some reason.

I have a feeling he isn't dead, but that he's just sitting in a room somewhere, waiting to be released. I'm not sure why, but I had a dream about him where he was in a completely dark room, laying on a bed in some old dingy room which appeared to look like an old military barracks room. He wasn't asleep but staring forwards, drilling holes into the wall behind be. I looked up and there was some shadow in the bed beside his, but that's all I saw before I woke up.

I was no stranger to weird and often extremely vivid and real dreams, I was the one 'dreamer' in our friend group. Although my friends give me crap occasionally, I'm pretty honoured to have a title like that, because I know for sure that being a dreamer like that is pretty rare. I brought this up, and everyone could agree with me that it was a pretty weird dream, but Savarra brought up something really interesting.

"Well I've had some really weird dreams like that before, and well they seem to depict real events with strange accuracy."

"You never told me you were a dreamer" I said.

"Everyone gave you crap for it, so I decided to keep quiet about it"

"You could have told me that, but you were saying that your dreams are *accurate*?

"Well yes, my dreams have been able to portray random things with strange accuracy. Remember when they found that guy lost in the woods in Stonemill back in September? Well in a dream once, I saw him running down the path from the tree line, and this orchestral song was blaring over the trees. I looked down the path and there was this giant shadow monster chasing him down the path.

He later said when he was found that he was chased by a shadow deep in the woods, which was a full day and a half AFTER my dream. With all that in mind, then how the fuck can I just be able to eavesdrop on other people's experiences?"

I was pretty shocked to learn about that dream. Savarra had never told me about that dream, and when his story came out, I was pretty interested in it. If it wasn't confusing enough, he started to explain another dream he had about a festival in Ironhall going horribly wrong, and after some research he found that said festival wasn't until May of next year, and this was their first time doing it.

We didn't know what to make of this, but then Crimson brought up something. "What if some dreams tell the present and some dreams tell the future? I mean that's the only thing that makes any sense, and maybe they feel so real because it's real events being portrayed or something?" It was a really good point, and we all started to believe it, even Cobalt, who is somehow more of a skeptic than I am.

Cobalt asked Savarra if there was anything else he could do that he didn't tell us, and he said yes. He explained how he was a water elemental, but he just never told us. I was shocked as to why, and he said it never came up in conversation. I was just thinking "Well screw that if I heard that you had water powers I wouldn't care if it interrupted my conversation," I asked him to show us, and he obliged, however he said he wasn't the best with his powers, and he needed more practice.

We all walked to one of the massive washrooms and he stepped into a shower. Savarra closed his eyes and kept his feet planted on the ground. He formed his hands like he was forming something with his hands, and although nothing happened and he opened his eyes, we encouraged him to keep going and concentrate deeper, and eventually a sphere of water began to form, expanding in between his hands.

We were all pretty excited for him, and I could tell he was excited too, but he kept his eyes closed and his mind focused, moving his hands around the sphere. Cobalt asked him if he could do anything else with it, and with his eyes closed he tried something else. He pointed his fingers forwards and flicked the top of the sphere, as he did the shape of the water sphere formed into the shape of a dagger.

He raised his hands and moved them up above the floating dagger, slowly bring them down and then bringing them up swiftly. As he continued the process, nothing seemed to be happening, but as he slowly started repeating the process at a much quicker pace, the water appeared to be heating up, and when he did it faster and faster, it even started to boil, and then he stopped, and he wanted to try one more thing.

He launched it against the far shower wall and it splashed everywhere, and it even somehow cracked the wall. We were all pretty excited and we cheered when he launched it. Although the wall was damaged, I didn't really care because nobody used this shower anyways. He apologised for breaking the wall, but I told him not to sweat it. After everyone stayed over for the night, we all left for school in the morning.

As we walked into the building, the air felt different. I pointed it out, but I was the only one who seemed to notice it. It felt like something was going to happen, and it set me on edge. Cobalt tried to convince me that nothing was wrong, but I couldn't ignore the feeling. The air was clear, but there was a clear sense of dread hanging in the air. Although it wasn't too severe, it was enough that I couldn't ignore it.

As the day went on and we came back after lunch, the lingering dread in the air was much more severe. I was seemingly the only person who acknowledged it, and I just waited. I couldn't even focus on what my teacher was saying. As the feeling began to get stronger and stronger, I waited and waited for something to happen. I heard a quiet high pitched sound, and I could tell I wasn't the only one who heard it.

Even the teacher stopped what he was saying and looked up. Everyone was looking around trying to find the source of the sound, but nobody could find it. The feeling of dread got stronger and stronger and then it came to a climax as the noise increased in only twenty seconds from when it began. Instinctively, I got up from my chair and hid under the desk. A couple of the students around looked at me like I was crazy, but then everything seemed to slow down.

I braced for impact under the desk, and then I heard a loud boom. I didn't look up and I kept myself under the desk. A second after the boom filled the air, I heard loud popping and cracking sounds, and then I heard the floor above buckle and fall into the middle of the room. After the dust settled, I got up and looked into the middle of the room. There was a giant pile of rubble and desks in the of the room, as well as students from the class above mixed with the students from my class.

Everyone in the room fell silent, and for a second nothing happened and nobody did anything, but then someone in the front of the class got up and helped someone up off the ground. At first I couldn't tell who because he was covered in dust from the rubble, but it was Jaiden. Seeing him helping people out caused me to, and everyone else did after that. From what we could see, nobody was dead, but a lot of people had to go to the hospital.

One of the people who fell from the class above wasn't at all hurt, only getting injured from the fall to our classroom on the third floor. She was the first I helped up, and there seemed to be a certain gleam in her eyes. After about twenty minutes, the teacher suggested that we all get out of the classroom, saying that the floor could be unstable and damaged by the explosion, so we all walked out of the class and stood in the hallway. Something seemed strange about her, but not in a sinister way, more of a mysterious way.

It was something I couldn't really place at the moment, but as I started to talk to her and when I did I could immediately tell there was something peculiar about her. We got along pretty well, but she was pretty socially awkward and seemed a bit unaware about things that is pretty general knowledge. I wanted to ask her about it, but I didn't want to make her feel like I was interrogating her.

It took a bit of convincing to get her to trust me, and I didn't want to immediately make her feel nervous. I felt bad for her because she was a lot like how I used to be, extremely shy and quiet but I eventually put myself out there and I became a much better person because of it. I didn't want her to end up how I did so I wanted to try and be a friend to her, something I'm glad Jaiden and the others did for me.

She told me her name was Echo, but that's just about all she was willing on telling me. I asked her if she wanted to hang out with the others and I after school, and surprisingly she said yes. We were still talking and waiting for a long time after the blast happened and we still haven't heard any words from the teachers or staff on what happened. Echo asked how long we had been waiting after I pointed it out, and it had turned out we were talking for two and a half hours.

We were both pretty surprised by how long we were talking, but I was more surprised on how long we had been waiting. I had been at this school for a full year, my seventeenth birthday coming up in late April, but in all my time here, I hadn't ever seen things take this long to sort out. Nobody even knew what happened, but everyone assumed some kind of bomb went off, although nobody could find the exact source of the blast.

I was wondering why they were keeping us all here just waiting out in the hallway, but I wasn't going to question their means. My school has always been a bit strange and secretive in how they deal with things, but this was different. This was really, really different from anything I had seen before and I was still shocked about what happened. I'm sure anyone would be if the floor above you just gave way in the middle of class.

After a while, the staff came up and told us we could all go home, and I was pretty excited to hear that. I asked Echo if she wanted to stay at my house for a bit, and she agreed. I met with the same group from yesterday, as well as Harley and Hailey who were two good friends of mine. Echo joined us and we all walked to my house, which was somewhat in walking distance of the school, so we decided to just walk the whole way home.

It didn't take long to get home, and when we did we just sat together and talked like we usually did. We tried our best to make Echo feel at home, and I think we did a pretty good job of it. I could tell she felt pretty welcome, if a bit shy. We had a good time talking together, and I decided to get us some snacks. When I came back with the food, Echo looked surprised, almost like she'd never seen cookies like the ones I made.

She had almost half of them herself, but I felt a bit bad for her because I could tell she didn't have too great of a home life. After a while, my younger brother Keplar came down. I asked him what he was doing, and he said he was grabbing some food before he went off to his friend's house. He was part of a garage band with his friends, and I always just let him off to do his own thing. We didn't have the best relationship, but we tried to get a long.

He left with his Electric Guitar and his amp, and we continued to talk. Although she was a bit cagey about herself she was pretty social with us, but she didn't seem to be the most confident. After a while, she said she had to go home, and she was going to walk. I didn't want her to have to walk all the way home alone in the cold and the dark, especially with people starting to go missing recently.

Echo was a bit hesitant, but she agreed for me to take her home. I drove down the road and she gave me directions, eventually getting to a smaller suburb on the outskirts of town. I drove quite a ways down the rural area until we got to her house. It looked like a small house, almost like a farmhouse with a much larger red building to the side of it which seemed to be abandoned as the paint was peeling off and the wood was rotting.

She said goodbye to me and thanked me for the ride before she went to the smaller house and went inside the building. After I made sure she got inside safely, I turned around and drove back home. Everyone was still there when I got back, and just when I was getting out of the car, Keplar was pulling in. I still don't understand how Keplar was able to get a driver's license at 12 years old, but I try not to think about it too much.

We both walked inside, Keplar coming in shortly after I did, and they all said hello to him. I knew they'd seen him a couple times before, but he was usually out when we hung out together, he had to come home earlier today because his friend's mom came home and got mad at them for some reason, and they decided to leave before things got worse. I found it a bit funny, and I was glad to see they found it funny too.

Even though we were all having fun, I was still worried about Echo. Although I didn't know what was going on, I was hoping things were going to get better for her, but also for society. Rosedell seemed like it was starting to go through a reform in recent years, especially with the rise of the Mafia. I just hoped things wouldn't get too bad. I had always taken things day by day, but now I found myself looking farther and farther into the future to wonder what is to come. . .

- April 39, 2059 -

I was hoping things were going to get better, but I was wrong. Things were worse than ever, and I started to worry about what was going to happen to us. Keplar was always going to Seamark for some reason, he never told me what it was, and Jaiden is always busy shadowing his older brother, because apparently he's becoming a technician or engineer, I couldn't remember exactly what he said.

Everyone was doing well, except for Echo. She seemed to get worse in fact, but whenever I would try and reach out to her, she'd ignore me, almost as if she didn't want any help. There was definitely a reason behind what she was doing, and even though I wanted to find out so badly, I didn't want to invade her personal space. Yesterday she didn't talk to me at school, and I begun to assume the worst.

I was struck with a dilemma, I could either dig deep and figure out what was going on with her, or respect her personal space. I chose the latter because I didn't want her to think even less of me, so after giving it some thought, I decided I was going to let her be for the time being. Although it seemed like a good idea at the time, I began to have a feeling I would regret it later on.

I tried not to think about her, but I couldn't stop thinking about what could be going on when I would drop her off at her house. Earlier this month she stopped showing up at our designated pick-up spot, and although I was concerned and wanted to find out why, she was pretty cagey about that too. I felt so bad for her, but sometimes it almost angered me to the point of how secretive she was being, directly refusing my help and ghosting all of us.

Now that it was just about May, things were hopefully going to get better. The weather was nice and all of the snow had melted off the ground. The great melt marked by the beginning of April had come to an end last week. I have no idea why, but whenever that happens, the people of Rosedell throw large festivals in every city, the festivals being pretty different from city to city.

The streets were still dotted with small specs of beads and colourful things from the festival even though it had come to pass 12 days ago. As I drove back home from school and walked inside the house, it felt empty. Nobody else was home, my older brothers and sisters were all at work at that time, and our parents were who knows where. Everyone else in our friend group was off doing something else, so I was home alone.

I didn't initially think I was completely alone because usually Keplar is doing something, but when I went around the house, I realised he must have not come back since he left for Seamark again a couple days ago. He's usually gone for just a day or two, but this was his fourth day out, and I was starting to worry a bit, but I was sure he'd turn up eventually. He doesn't like to tell me when he's coming home so I always have to be on my toes.

Having a lot of free time to myself, I turned on the TV and started reading. I don't normally get to watch the shows I want to because normally someone else is using the TV or nobody wants to watch the same things that I do, but now that I was alone I got to watch whatever I wanted. I enjoyed reading and watching TV at the same time, even though it's a bit unconventional. I enjoy having some background noise while I read and I like to switch between worlds occasionally.

After a while of watching a show, I decided to play around with my trident. All of girls in our family are given tridents and we're told that we're not allowed to use them until we turn nineteen years old, but whenever I'm home alone I like to practice using it, and over time I've gotten pretty good with it, however I've never been able to practice my aim in throwing it, because then it would be obvious what I was doing.

Obviously I wouldn't leave behind any signs that I was doing something I wasn't supposed to be doing and because it was so easy to hide, there was no reason not to. The TV blared as I swung my trident around, attacking invisible foes. I had done this many times in the past and this was no different. It was pretty fun and a bit of a workout. Once I was done and feeling a bit tired, I went into the kitchen and grabbed a drink of water.

As I stood in the kitchen and drank from my cup, I heard the garage door opening. Without checking, I knew it must have been Keplar coming back, but I had never seen him use the garage. I walked into the small side hallway on the right side of the house and opened the door to the large garage, as I did I saw Keplar about to open it. His red pickup was parked right next to the stairs and he had an excited yet guilty look on his face.

It took me all of 2 seconds to realise that he did something stupid. He's done lots of dumb things in the past, especially with the help of his friends. They've gotten up to a lot of chaos in the past, one time stealing a tractor from a nearby farm and driving it to our house in the middle of the night and then all the way back, somehow never getting caught. They do a lot of stupid things but they're too sneaky to keep track of. I sighed before he even spoke.

"What did you do this time?" I said in a tired voice.

"Before you get mad at me, I have a reason for this ok?"

"What's your reason?"

"Well. . . it's a bit hard to explain but-"

"Ok what do you need my help with?"

"I need you to help me carry something. I already have a platform we can use to get it to the basement. I need to get it to the old workshop area that nobody uses. Can you help me with it or no?"

" \*sigh\* Yes I'll help you, but only because I'll be toast if mom finds out about this. She'll find some way to blame me and give me a worse punishment."

"Oh thank you so much!"

He ran over to his pickup and pulled out the 'sled' that he was going to use. It was a thick plank of wood with rails and retractable wheels so that it could be easily pushed on the ground and up or down stairs. He placed it at an angle on the steps and got back in his truck to align it with the steps, the white tarp on the trunk still covering whatever it was he had, and then he walked around to the back and pulled off the tarp.

It was a robot, but not just any robot. It was a robot that was made to look like his favourite member of his favourite band, that being Unsung Nebula. I instantly knew where it was from because he wouldn't shut up about StarWorld, an entertainment palace that the band members created to get loads of money, and it worked. I've never been there but I know that it's located in Seamark, and it somehow pulls in people from all around to that dump of a city.

Unsung Nebula was pretty popular about 15 years ago, but they didn't make music for a really long time, until they announced back in December that they had finished building an attraction where people could have fun and enjoy their music, trying to re-brand their image. From what I know, when business became too much for the six of them to handle, they created robots to help them which were modeled after the band members.

Around the beginning of April, Keplar went there almost all the time; he was completely in love with that place, especially their second guitarist and vocalist who was a female. I used to tease him a bit for being in love, but he always denied it, but this seemed to be a nail in the coffin for that theory. I decided to hold off on teasing him for now, because we needed to haul a 2000 pound cat robot down the stairs and into the basement.

We hauled it onto the piece of wood that somehow didn't break when we dropped it onto the board. We pushed it up the stairs and then opened up the wheels and pushed it through the house, and after about forty minutes we managed to finally get it to the workshop area at the back of the basement. We pushed it into a back room and sat it down on a table, that being the hardest part.

Once we got it to sit on the table, we didn't really know what to do. We just stared at and I slowly began to wonder how the fuck he managed to do this. Keplar and his friends had done some really, really crazy things in the past, but stealing a 2000 pound 8-foot tall robot from a place that was IN OPERATION, and I was honestly dumbfounded, but I decided to ask him once I was out of shock.

"So, um tell me how you stole this thing?"

"Well we just went in, and when she was in a room alone we powered her off, put her in the truck and got her out of there. Somehow nobody noticed,"

"I will never understand how you all managed to lift this thing and haul it out of there during operating hours,"

"I have no clue either. I don't even know why we did it, we were just bored,"

And now we had a robot that we had no clue how to use. Keplar mentioned that he turned it off when he took it from StarWorld, so I asked him to turn it back on, but he said that he wasn't the one to turn it off, and he didn't know where the switch was either. I looked at the front and Keplar climbed onto the table to look at the back of it. After a while of searching, he found the switch on the robot's back, located just below its head on the back of its neck.

He paused for a moment and took a deep breath, and then he flipped the switch. The robot came to life, opening its eyes and sitting up straight as it did. Keplar ran to the front of the table and jumped off, joining me as we both stood in shock. The thing still worked somehow even though it was only running on reserve battery. I was pretty surprised that it was able to move on its own accord in a somewhat natural pattern, as well as speak.

"Where am I? Who are you?" it asked.

"My name is Keplar, and this is my sister Mercury. You sound a bit different from when I heard you the other day,"

"Umm I'm not sure what you're talking about? This is how I always sound?"

"No, I've been to StarWorld at least fifty times and I've heard your voice every time I went there. You seem different."

"W- There is nothing different about my voice, but may I ask why you brought me here?"

"Well now that we're here, I may as well explain why I really picked you -"

"Is it because you love Mila?" I said jokingly.

"No it isn't Mercury, shut it I'm explaining my reasoning. I thought I heard something from inside you calling out. Calling out for help. Calling out to be released, saying they were trapped somewhere. I thought I was going crazy, but everyone else seemed on board with the idea. I didn't tell anyone what I heard because they'd think I was losing my mind, but I know what I heard,"

"... You did? Well maybe I shouldn't keep this act up for any longer."

"Wait so I was actually right"

"Yes, you were. You did hear something and that was me. I don't think I can even begin to explain what happened to me. It's too painful to remember and I'd rather forget."

"Oh I'm sorry about whatever happened to you,"

"It's fine, don't worry about it. I wasn't the only one. All of us; the original eight were all chosen to be.. well we were given an experimental power source that allowed us to have no need for batteries. Although these original models are much more efficient, we are much more complicated than the copies they made as backups. They have probably replaced me by now. . ."

"Do you know exactly what's powering you or no?"

"Well uh it's heavily classified. They're pretty secretive about it, and we don't even know much about it."

"OK this is the last question for now, but I just want to know. It kind of stood out to me how advanced your AI is. You're almost like a real person."

"... We were all programmed to have a conscience similar to that of our real counterparts."

They talked for a bit, and eventually the topic came onto repairs, because her arm was a bit stiff, probably from sitting in Keplar's trunk for however long he kept the robot in there. I knew that Jaiden and his brother Carmin who I knew was an engineer. I didn't have Carmin's number so I called up Jaiden. Jaiden was free and so was Carmin, and without telling them what Keplar had done, I told them to come over because I needed some technical help. They were happy to help us out and they came over without question.

Jaiden and Carmin came at the same time, and before I let them inside, I told them about what Keplar did. They seemed pretty shocked, and Carmin seemed a little pained. I knew they both had worked on robots before, so there was a decent chance that maybe Carmin had a hand in making this one. I walked them to the basement and all the way to the far end where Keplar and the Robot were talking.

Carmin seemed to know about it, and the robot seemed to recognise him. Carmin inspected it, and after a minute he pulled something out of its back and held it to the light. We all looked to see what it was, and as we inspected the strange little object, we came to the relisation that it was a GPS tracker.

We panicked a bit as we tried to figure out what the hell we were going to do, when Carmin suggested that him and Keplar go for a drive and throw it into the nearby Kosoda River, and they both agreed, while Jaiden and I stayed at the house to make sure nobody came to try and take it back. It was a weird plan, but I was confident it would work.

...

Keplar and Carmin drove down the highway in Carmin's Car about 40 minutes away into the Kosoda Greenbelt, a region of forests that surrounds the Southeast to West sides of the Greater Kosoda Region, a massive area that consists of Kosoda as well as many smaller towns spread out across the area.

They pulled over to the side of the road over a smaller bridge and stepped out. There were no cars around which was definitely a good sign. With the GPS in his hand, Carmin drew his arm back, and with all his might threw the device as far as he could, making a splash as it hit the raging river.

"What now?" Keplar asked.

"We make ourselves look innocent" Carmin responded.

He had planned ahead, and his decision was good in hindsight. They pulled a U-turn and went a short way down the road and pulled into a small alcove into the forest along the river. It was a seldom-used pick nick spot that was unsurprisingly empty. They picked the table closest to the river and sat down, eating bagged sandwiches that Carmin had in his car.

They were fresh and made the night prior, made by Jaiden with the intent of one of them being for him, but Carmin was pretty sure that Jaiden wouldn't mind. As the two began to eat, they saw a group of black cars rush down the road and stop at the bridge, the one at the back of the convoy pulling in right next to Carmin's car on the gravel 'parking lot'.

A couple very official looking men in suits walked out of the vehicle and approached the duo, asking some questions about exactly what they expected they would. They were from StarWorld's legal team or something like that and they started asking the two if they had seen any other vehicles go by.

They said that the had, and that they saw them dump something into the river not too long ago. They asked if they had a license plate, and Keplar gave one that belonged to some random teacher from some school in Stonemill. He only gave them that specific license plate because the guy gave him an off-vibe.

After that, they headed home and told us what had happened. We didn't get anyone come to our door which I thought was strange, but I didn't question it. Enough strange shit had happened and I wasn't about to start questioning it all now; we were in too deep. My brother successfully stole a whole robot somehow, and I had no idea what we were going to do next, and then Keplar had an idea.

"Hey why don't we try to meet some new people? We could go to Stonemill or something it could be a whole new adventure? Us four maybe?"

"Sure, that sounds like a good idea, but what are we going to do with Mila?"

"Take her with us!"

It was a stupid idea, but I thought that it just might work. We had done enough crazy shit up to this point, so why the hell not? What's the worst that could happen?

## Downtown Brandon, Stonemill, IZ144/6/76 (K), Thursday, November 25, 2058, Nomad -Kiff's Exile-

As I sat in Mr. Kiff's class, having been transferred into it after Josh went missing, I began to take note of how weird this guy was. A couple of things I noticed about him was that he just generally seemed *off*. There was just something about him that I couldn't at all place, but something deep in my mind pointed out and didn't offer any further information on why this guy seemed off.

I paid a lot of attention to class because I really needed to catch up with this class after the switch, and this guy was dumping a bunch of work onto me and giving me absolutely no breaks. As I paid close attention to every word he said and wrote it all down as fast as I could, I began to take notice in the fact that he was a liar. He mentioned how he was a pandoreal and went on long rants about 'the life of a pandoreal' almost everyday.

However, I knew for sure he was lying. I know that I saw him during the GCW when I fought, and even though he was in a different platoon, his hair and face are unmistakable. He also said his birthday was in 1723, but he couldn't keep a good date. I remember hearing him speaking to his class in the first week, and he said his birthday was in August, specifically August 26, but when I got to the class earlier this week, he told me his birthday was April 9th.

When I got back to my house, I couldn't really stop thinking about him being a liar, and I asked Leas and Zane if they knew anything about the guy. Of course they did, and they told me he was a pretty important and secretive guy. When I told them that I got transferred into his class and that he was my new teacher, Leas seemed to not know much about the guy but Zane looked slightly concerned.

"I don't know much about him, but I do know that he's very secretive and important in some way, but it seems a lot of people don't know," Zane said.

"He's been lying about his birthday, and he told us all that he was a pandoreal, do you know if that's true?" I asked.

"I know for sure that he is a pandorian. He was in my platoon and I would have seen the telltale pieces of biometal and all of those other things on his body that denote a pandoreal, and he only had a scar around his side. We all joked that he sold one of his kidneys, and he always seemed to be a bit sensitive about it."

"Huh, so I was right in thinking I saw him in the war. Why would he lie about that?"

"Well, you see he was known to be a pathological liar among our platoon, but I know for sure his birthday is on October 40, or at least that's what it says on all of his official paperwork and stuff."

"Well then. So that explains a lot,"

"Yea he made a lot of pretty outrageous claims, and he was generally a bit of a creep."

We had a long conversation about Mr. Kiff, or just Kiff as they liked to call him. It was a joke amongst them that even though Kiff is a pretty common last name, especially amongst pandoreals, that if referred to a Kiff someone would likely know what you were talking about. It's purely a coincidence that his name was shared with the common pandoreal moniker, which seemed to help give credence the idea that he was a pandoreal.

I knew he wasn't a pandoreal because I trust my brothers, and because he was right about pandoreals only being developed after the war to be used as weapons, although not much is known about the early stages of the production process of pandoreals, although what is known is that it took many years to test and develop them, and then once the general public started to find out, people started questioning the ethics of it, and then eventually the Sides War broke out.

After I got to school the next day, I wanted to try and pay more attention to Kiff to see what else he could be lying about. I paid really close attention to every word he said and I analysed it, trying to look out for all the lies he told. Most of what he was saying was straight from the text book, but at the times when he went on his own and spoke his own opinion, I started to realise something else about him.

For one, he was racist, however he was really smart and only very subtly racist in his words. He was also xenophobic and he seemed to be pro-corruption, but all of his terrible views were well hidden under wraps and careful wordplay. The way he was being so careful and subtle in his words was almost impossible to make out just how messed up this guy was, and if you weren't paying really close attention to every single word he said, you wouldn't know about it.

As I thought more and more about why he could be lying, I thought that maybe he was insane or that he had something wrong with his brain and although it was a pretty big conclusion to jump to, it seemed pretty reasonable to me. As he kept going, I began to get the feeling that I had to stop this guy. He was spreading agenda although subtly but it still felt wrong, and I really wanted to confront him about it.

I waited for class to end, but it went on and on. The class dragged on as I waited for it to end. Near the end of the class when he went on another one of his rants about random stuff. I thought I wouldn't get anything from it, but before I could take out a book, Oliver who was in my class asked him what his stance on the corrupted coronians were, and he gave a pretty strange answer.

Kiff paused for a moment to choose his words carefully, and then he spoke. He talked about how he was against what they were doing, and that he was also against the Red Kingdom. To me, it felt like another lie. Although he could have been genuine, with everything else he said it felt like it could have been another one of his lies, just trying to pander to what he thought we would be feeling.

I didn't get the opportunity to meet with him that day, and I decided to start keeping track of everything that he lied about over the next week. Although it was long and tedious work and sometimes I had to hide what I was doing so he didn't know what I was up to, but I managed to hide it well and eventually I had a pretty good amount of information on inconsistencies.

When the class ended on the 35th and everyone else left the class, I asked for a meeting with him and he told me to come back in two and a half hours when he was done his prep. I waited outside in the hallway for a while reading a book about the country of Telkomi, the island country that's far up north above Stonemill and the other medium-sized islands that rest in the open seas.

It seemed like a really nice place. Completely in solitude where nobody has been recorded to live. Nobody lives there because it's one of the most north countries on the planet, being connected to the island of Anatomili which is a bit larger, and has the north pole on it. I've always wanted to live on Telkomi because it's almost perfect for me, being extremely cold and covered in forest, but still being inhabited by lots of animals and open sky.

I've always been drawn to secluded places, even though I was never sure why. I was also so enthralled by the north. Something about the outer reaches of the planet was so interesting, and how distant it was compared to everything I knew. With all of the recent disappearances going on, sometimes I wanted to disappear and be on my own, to escape from the stress of this society. To effectively be dead but still alive.

After about three and a half hours, Kiff came to get me and I walked into his class. He asked me why I wanted to meet with him, and I got straight to the point. "So I've noticed you're quite the liar. I know for sure that I saw you during the GCW, so why would you lie and say that you were born after it? Why would you say that you were a pandoreal? Why would you lie?"

He looked pretty surprised, and then he spoke up. "Well, well, someone's being doing their research huh. What else do you know?" He didn't know at all how much I knew, so I decided I would play off of that. Doing what he was doing I chose my words pretty carefully, and I wanted to be as vague as possible, however I also had to reveal some of the things I'd noticed about him.

"I've been watching you a bit more closely this week, and I managed to dig up some more information about you,"

"Well what did you find out, mister detective?" He sat on his desk trying to act cool, but I could tell I was challenging him.

"Well I know a lot of stuff about you, but for starters you've been pretty inconstant with your birth date, you've lied about random things, you've been subtly projecting your xenophobia and your opinions on the class, and I know about how you may or may not have sold your kidney,"

"Wow. I'm a bit impressed honestly. Now that we're talking about each other's faults, how about I mention how you are a traitor to your kingdoms. Don't think I don't know you were trying to help those coronians during the war,"

"You can't threaten me with that, that was 500 years ago, and if it was so bad then why did nobody else say anything about it? I should also mention how I caught you staring at a couple of people's butts, so what's that about? You Creep?" at this point I could tell I was starting to dig deeper into him. I was pacing around the room as I spoke, and I could tell he was really trying to stay calm.

"Why would you expose a fellow war brother like that? How much else do you know about?"

"I know a lot, but I'd rather not speak about it here, seeing as it might get you locked up," I was pulling all of this out of my ass to try and see how he would react, and surprisingly, he took the bait and believed me. His expression changed from his joking tone to a serious one.

"Well then Nomad. So you know about.. well I'm not sure how much you really know, because all of that should be redacted and classified, but clearly you have your means to expose me for no reason. I hope you know that you haven't really gained much from this, and well now you know that I'm technically insane. So I hope you know that you made an insane and very powerful enemy, Nomad.

I suggest you stop digging into this, and I don't even know how far you are into your research, if you've even done any at all. I don't want to have to kill you for knowing too much. Anyways, this meeting is over, so you should be on your way." As he finished, his tone changed back to the chipper tone that he had prior. I was a bit shaken up, and I said bye to him and walked out.

I was pretty shocked how much I was able to dig up about him, and I was pretty eager to tell the others about it. I called a taxi and it took me about three quarters the way up the main road to Ampor manor, and then the driver explained that's all they were able to go. I got out and ran the rest of the way up the road, but when I got inside, everyone was super stressed.

I asked why, and they told me that Will went missing, and that he was last seen going down the forest path behind the house. Charlie, Kevamar, and Jake had just left to go search the path for any sign of him, and everyone was on edge waiting for them to come back, and he was already reported missing while I was meeting with Kiff. I didn't get an opportunity to tell anyone what happened, until I found Haji and Turrami together as everyone was starting to cool off.

I joined in their conversation, and they were pretty friendly at first, but when I started to explain what I was doing for the past week, they started to get mad at me. I admitted that it was morally wrong for me to be stalking my teacher, but I tried to explain to them that there was something wrong with him. They stopped arguing with me to hear my reasoning, and I was shocked to hear that they didn't believe me.

I was shocked to hear that, and as I continued to try and tell them the truth, the truth of everything I had dug up about this man and how awful he could be, they didn't listen. They straight up ignored me no matter how much I tried to explain how I was telling the truth. Eventually, more and more people started to come over, and at first I thought they would be on my side, as I was clearly in the right, but they weren't.

I tried to justify why I had to stalk him, why I had to pay such close attention to him, why I had to go to such great lengths to do what I did to try and expose him, but it didn't work. They tried to tell me that I shouldn't have been stalking him, and how it was wrong and how I was going to get in trouble, but I didn't listen. I didn't even want to tell them about what I found out, because I didn't think they deserved to know.

Almost the entire house was turned against me and trying to tell me off and say that what I did was bad. A lot of them were polite, but most of the people who knew Kiff got really defensive and pretty aggressive, mainly Oliver and Haji. I was so confused as to why they were being so aggressive, and I decided to just walk away. Oliver and Haji followed me, but they eventually backed off.

Dinner was really awkward, and not a single word was spoken, except for when Haji asked me to pass the salt. I thought about saying "You passed enough salt earlier," but I decided against it and I handed it to him normally, trying not to make things worse when they were. Even after dinner, others in the house kept coming up to me and telling me that I was wrong and what I did and what I was doing was wrong.

I didn't even bother to tell any of the people who came up to me that I had found out a lot of valuable information on Kiff, I just ignored them the whole time. It was times like this I wished I could live in the north, far away in the dense forests that completely cover the country of Telkomi, living on my own away from the stress of everyone. As I thought more about it, the more I actually wanted to do it.

I knew it wouldn't be an easy life and it would surely be cold as anything, but it would be so calm and isolated. Over the past couple of moths, life in the city had become so stressful, and with the Red Kingdom and corrupted coronians on the rise and people going missing left and right on all of the major countries in the world, things were more stressful and scary than ever, and I just wanted to disappear from it all, and be almost like a dead man.

Although almost every person in the building was telling me otherwise, I had to keep digging deeper. They all brought up the same points, saying "Oh he's so young, he's good looking, he's got a perfect body and everything, he isn't suspicious, there isn't anything strange about him, he's sane, he's a good man, he's smart," they all said the same things, and I was beginning to think he was brainwashing them.

The people were right, he was young and good looking, and by all means if I was none the wiser, I would think he was on our side. He has the looks and the skills and the smarts and everything that a lot of the people on our side possessed, but I knew he was evil. Maybe he wasn't truly sane, yet although he's uncorrupted, that doesn't mean he can't be pure evil, and I'm sure he is.

From what I did know at that point, he wasn't against the Red Kingdom, and more of what he said underneath his words seemed to suggest he was or the Red Kingdom and corrupted coronians, despite the fact that he was almost definitely racist to some regard, my main evidence for that being how he spoke about the people from more poor countries and even poor places in Stonemill and Ironhall, saying out loud that "Seamark's full of uneducated people, I wouldn't want to go there if I were you"

Kiff also had a lot of secrets he wasn't sharing with me. I knew he must have a pretty extensive crime record, referencing multiple crimes in his past. He also seemed to be a major creep, and possibly a predator, which made me pretty uneasy knowing that he was a teacher. Knowing that he was a pretty powerful person, likely being a member of the Blue Kingdom, he likely didn't have much of a problem getting the job.

As I began to think harder and harder about his past and his kingdom alignment, I began to think about how he could be so powerful. What was his position that nobody seemed to know about? Zane was in his platoon, so he was clearly really really close to him, and not even he know why and how he had so much power and influence, power and influence that not many people knew about, not a single person at Ampor Manor knew he had any power above being a teacher.

- 8 Days Later -

Every day I was in school over the past week I was being as attentive as possible, but I was being as secretive about it. I didn't want Kiff to find out, nor did I want the others to find out. I'm sure that if they knew I continued my search they would be pissed off at me. I had to continue on though, I had to dig deeper and deeper until I hit the bottom. I didn't want to stop until I found out what he did in his past.

Over that week I also started thinking even more about moving to the north. I didn't tell a single soul about it because I didn't want anyone else to know about it. I already owned a pistol before, but I went to a gun store and used some of my war payment and compensation that I'd gained over the years to buy some more guns. I chose some that would be the most effective for hunting, and I bought a bunch of spare ammo, enough to supply me for about a year.

When I went to pay, the man at the desk looked pretty surprised and said I looked pretty young, but I got out my ID card and showed it to them. They were mortified and apologized profusely, but I said it was all good and we had a pretty good laugh about it. I went around to a couple of other gun stores, and in all I bought six rifles and plenty of ammo, I ended up buying more ammo than I realised, but it's better to have more than you would need, because then I don't need to go back into town as often.

When I got back home after school, I came back to Ampor Manor for the first time since the incident. It was pretty awkward, and I felt all the eyes in the building turn on me as I walked through the door. Nobody said a word to me, and I didn't bother to try and make conversation. I went straight to the shooting range on the second floor, and decided to take out my frustrations on some metal targets and other things.

I set up some special dummies that are made to mimic the body of a pandorian or coronian target. They're made using gelatin and fake organs, and the coronian ones are much thicker and larger. They're not too expensive and apparently they're really accurate and fun to shoot. I started to test out my new guns and get the hang of them. I was having fun, and after a while, Charlie walked in.

I was hoping that Charlie would be one of the few people who was on my side, and thankfully I was right. I didn't talk to her, but she told me that she believed me that there was something off about Kiff. She was two years older than us, but she had been in his class during her first two years at the school, and she said that she thought there was something weird about him, but nobody believed her either.

She told me how she always thought something was strange about him, but nobody else seemed to say anything about him. She told me how she knew she was a major creep, but he was able to hide it well. When I brought up what I noticed about watching him, she said she felt like she noticed similar things about Kiff, but she never dug any deeper. We talked about Kiff as we used the range, and after a while I asked if she wanted to know about the interview.

Charlie was curious, and I told her everything that happened, going over every small detail. She looked pretty shocked, and she agreed with me that there was more to Kiff than he was letting on. She thanked me for pointing it out to her, and she encouraged me to continue my research on him, knowing full well almost the entire house was against me doing the research on him.

I asked her if she knew why so many people thought I was wrong and why they didn't believe me, and she said it was probably because it's a super unbelievable conclusion to draw, and to most people who weren't as analytical as Charlie and I were it would seemingly have no basis. She also brought up something really interesting that I overlooked, which was that he was really assertive, trustworthy, manipulative and controlling.

Knowing all of this, it's clear to see he's a lot smarter than I had thought, and I already thought he was extremely cunning. We started to think about it, and it's clear to see what was going on here. Kiff was so cunning and manipulative that he managed to make people who he'd never even seen think of him in a certain way. We thought it could be a product of his manipulation and power, those manipulation skills being what makes up his influence.

I asked Charlie if she wanted to help me with my investigation into Kiff, and she agreed. I was happy that finally someone was believing me, and she could tell I was pretty eager to have her help. I asked if there was anything she had at the station that might be of help, and she mentioned how there files on people at the station who had criminal records, and knowing his past, we thought maybe he could be on the list and that there were records of him.

I asked Charlie if we could go, and she said she couldn't go in today because it was too late, but she offered to take me there tomorrow, and I accepted the offer. I was pretty eager to excited to finally have someone who finally believed me. It felt nice, but it didn't change my mind about going to Telkomi. I had a good plan too. After dinner, I went to pick up some more supplies and necessities for camping out in the wilderness.

It took a while to get all of the stuff and some of it was pretty expensive, but I had more money than I knew what to do with so I was fine with splurging if it meant things weren't too bad to adjust to a new life in the north. I wanted to get all of the things I needed as fast as possible, so that I could get the information from the police station if any, and then I could ask for another meeting with Kiff to confront him.

I was prepared to find no new information on him, and in the event of the actually happening, I would pull out the rest of what I knew about him and hopefully get some more information from him. I wanted to get everything so quickly, because I knew from his tone in the first meeting we had that he might not take too kindly with me knowing so much about him, and in the event of things going wrong, I knew how to cast a wormhole from a spell.

Earlier that week when I was heading back to the coronian cave, I wanted to go exploring for a bit, and when I did someone came out of a wormhole right in front of me. He asked me if I knew how to get to Downtown Brandon, and in exchange for giving him directions to the city, he offered to teach me a spell, and I accepted his offer. It was a really random, but I was interested in trying it out, and I still have the drawing of the ritual circle design that I had to draw to summon it.

I practiced it a couple of times over the past couple of days, and I got pretty good at summoning wormholes, but I noticed that it took a lot of physical energy to summon a wormhole, and whenever I did, I felt pretty drained. I assumed it was an exchange for casting the spell, but I wasn't too certain about it. I couldn't find any books on ritual circles at the nearest library and I wasn't about to ask for any due to the whole situation that happened with Josh last month.

I decided to only save it for when I needed it because I didn't want to keep draining my energy, and summoning the wormholes gave me headaches a couple of times. I didn't share my newest skill with anyone else either, because I was still pretty mad at the others for being so rude to me. I still didn't have the slightest clue as to why they didn't believe me, but it didn't matter. I was getting really close to uncovering Kiff's secrets, and I wasn't going to let them stop me.

...

When I got back to the manor, I waited a bit for Charlie to come back, and she took me down to the station. As we were driving towards the station, I asked her what she was going to say when she came in with me. She paused for a second, but she came up with a pretty good idea. She knew that a couple of the other officers were allowed to bring in their siblings in to help with investigations sometimes.

I didn't think too hard about it until we got to the station and one of the officers said that we didn't look too much alike. Before Charlie could say anything, I blurted out that I was adopted, and she went with it. They seemed to believe it, and I asked if they knew about Kiff. They didn't know about him, but they thought they might have some files about him in their records.

A couple of the officers led Charlie and I down into the records basement. I didn't think the records room would be too big, but to my surprise it was MASSIVE, and all of the shelves were full of file folders on the records of everyone they took in to the station, released and unreleased, and all of the records on everyone related to all of the cases that the team of the Downtown Brandon PD had ever investigated.

All of the shelves were full of folders of various thickness, all being labelled by name in alphabetical order of the first name listed on the folders, followed by the last name. I looked around the room, and I wanted to see if they had any files on Josh. Sure enough, they did although there were only a couple of files in the folder, and there wasn't any new information to be gained from it.

I looked around for anything else before I looked for Kiff, and I went right to W. There were almost no files on Will, only the initial report and the image they took of the note he left. I never got to read the note, but now that I could, I could see that it was left to try and get us to not look for him. The note was pretty cryptic, but I could tell that he was safe, wherever he was and he didn't want to be looked for.

I didn't know why they didn't close off the investigation, and as far as I knew when I was back at the mansion earlier that day that they were still looking for Will. If I had known about the note, I would have been more apposed to them going out and looking for him. Even though I wanted to try and tell them to stop looking for Will, but I knew I would be ignored if I tried, and it would be pretty pointless to even try, and I would be leaving for Telkomi some time soon.

I thought about it more and more, and the more I thought about Josh's and Will's disappearances and how I wanted to be like that, but I didn't want anyone to look for me. I knew I could trust Charlie pretty well, and while we were in the record room, I told her what I was thinking, but instead of saying I wanted to go to the north, I told her I was investigating wormholes, and I wanted to try and go to Reality M.

She was intrigued, and when I told her why, she felt bad for me but I told her it was fine. I wanted to be in solitude and it wasn't her fault at all. Things were getting really stressful recently, and society in general was starting to push me out, so I wanted to leave on my own terms, but in the short time I had before I was going to leave Stonemill I wanted to expose Kiff, and now that I was in the records room, I had access to a good amount of information on him.

I went to L for Lurio, and it didn't take too long to find his folder. When I pulled it off the shelf, I almost dropped it on the ground. The folder was absolutely huge and full of papers. There was so much paper inside the folder that the folder was warping to contain all of the papers. I heaved it onto one of the tables in the corners of the room. I laid it down on the table and opened it up to start looking through for any clues to what happened in his past.

Most of the papers in the folder were almost entirely redacted, and only a couple of words were saved on every paper from being completely blacked out. I slowly flipped through the file but almost every paper in the folder was completely blacked out, all of the valuable information that was contained in these pages censored by someone higher up. I was starting to lose hope, but then I found a paper that wasn't intended to be clear.

The paper was almost like a list of crimes, laid out for me. I called Charlie over before I started reading, and as we started to read this small list of Kiff's crimes, it got worse and worse. It started off pretty bad with a couple of attempted murder charges and charges against him for committing robbery from private organizations and withholding information about several cases he was evolved in, although it didn't go into much detail about that.

As I looked down the list, I began to realise I was right about more than I thought. He was charged for lying to a judge and police officers about various details, including personal details which outright confirmed my suspicions and what Leas and Zane were telling me, not that I didn't believe it though. As we went down the page, Charlie and I got more and more horrified about what Kiff was really up to.

There was blatant confirmation that he was a sexual predator, although it wasn't stated if he had done anything but even if he didn't do anything, that was still some awful information to hear about. Although it wasn't stated in that report, we were pretty sure was a pedo which was even worse. We kept going down the page and the front side wasn't too bad, but the back side was worse than we thought.

The page had seven crimes listed on them, the first five being attempted murder charges with brief details of the case, but the other two were shocking. The first one was dubbed "Alleyway 37" which was an instance where ten people were found dead in a random alleyway in Kat, the worst thing that happened in the town. Although on the surface one wouldn't think that he was evolved, this official crime report contradicted what everyone believed.

The Alleyway 37 crime was somewhat recently, happening twenty years ago in the city of Kat. There was a long investigation and two years later, one Juno M. Massey was convicted of the crime and sentenced to death, and then everybody forgot about it, because the case was closed, right? But this was an official report of what was listed as "Page one of 6" in a list of crimes that were linked to Kiff, and it was unclear if this set even contained everything.

The page had the official seal of the police force on it, so it was definitely the real report, and he likely used his power and influence to evade ever seeing any repercussions for his crimes. The last crime on the page wasn't as bad as Alleyway 37, but it wasn't good either. The case was dubbed the "Heather Rose Case" named after the victim who was identified to be one Heather Rose.

It happened relatively recently, happening five years ago almost to the day in Seamark, the city that he hated. On the surface it was just a normal murder case, but when you dig deeper, you can see a lot of problems with it. First, the woman was badly beaten and her face was mutilated which made identifying her really hard, and some DNA was found on her body that wasn't hers. She was only identified by her coat and brown hair when her sister saw the news.

According to the report, Heather and Kiff had been married happily for eleven years, and they even had a child who was four years old when Heather went missing, and the child who was named Archie Rose was never found and assumed to be dead. Kiff managed to evade suspicion and when they tested the DNA, he didn't match it, and the case was linked to a Rellom Cellio, part of the Cellio family which owns the very popular tech company of the same name who produces cell phones and the like.

It shocked a lot of people, and the family tried to deny that their son was guilty, even providing an alibi, but nobody believed them when the parents said their son was framed, and then everyone went on with their life as he got two life sentences, even though he brought up the chance that Archie was still alive, however they charged him for two murders he didn't commit. It turned out Kiff was a lot worse than I had thought, and I had only seen a small portion of his crimes.

I flipped through the rest of the folder, but every other page was completely redacted, the other pages in the series of his crimes were fully blacked out, but the names for the crimes weren't filled in as well, and some of them were legible. The most notable one I could make out was dubbed the "Randall Scandal" which happened when a woman named Summers Randall who owned an insurance company had embezzled a bunch of money from her company and then went missing.

She was seen going into her apartment alone, and then four days later she was found dead in a closet that was locked from the outside. She was apparently stabbed several times in the chest, although reviewing the footage of her apartment building, nobody was seen going in or out since she entered, and even in the days before, which ruled out that someone snuck in before and waited.

Although it was one of the cases I recognised, it was the most mysterious and it was the only one I couldn't make out his involvement in it. In the others, It wasn't too hard to see how he could have been involved in it, but this one was different. I didn't dwell on it too much though, and I flipped through the rest of the book to the very end, and I read every un-redacted word to try and piece some things together.

Even though I tried, I couldn't get anything else from the file, and I put the file back on the shelf, having to push the other folders out of the way to get it to fit on the shelf. When I put it back, I felt pretty accomplished having discovered so much about Kiff. I was ready to confront him with the information I had found out, but I started to get nervous about my meeting with him, because I now knew for sure he was a dangerous man.

I went back to the mansion and spent the night there, none of us talking about our discovery knowing that the others would be really mad at us if they found out. I spent the night there, and before I went to sleep, I went back to the shooting range and I was surprised to see Charlie already in there. I started shooting for a bit, and then she went to go and leave, but I stopped her on here way out.

Knowing full well that Kiff was very dangerous, I knew that there was a good chance he would attack me if I confronted him with too much information, and I told Charlie as such. I told her that if I went missing, then I'm either dead or in Reality M, having escaped through a wormhole I had summoned to get away from him. She asked if she wanted me to look for me if I disappeared, then I told her that I was going to be safe in Reality M and that they wouldn't find me.

I had an idea to get a board and draw out the ritual circle on it so I could deploy it and cast the spell on the fly if I was being chased, and I showed her how to do it. I didn't summon anything because I didn't want to burn up all the magic stored within the circle or waste my energy. When she left, she wished me luck, and I said I was going to need it, and then I spent a bit more time on the range before I went to bed.

As class ended the next day, I stayed behind and he already knew what I was about to ask him. He told me the same thing, and I was prepared to wait for a while outside the class. I went into the hall and took a seat and started reading more about Telkomi, so I knew for sure what I was getting into. Although nobody lives there, it's been recorded that there were some buildings scattered around the endless woods, and I thought about possibly using one as my new home.

None of these houses were listed on official maps, I was going to have to try and summon a wormhole above the tree line so I could scout out for one, which likely wouldn't be too hard to find, as apparently they are slightly visible from planes that fly low over the ground, however it might be hard to look for them. It was starting to get dark, and if I was going to be attacked after the meeting like I was expecting, finding a home could be fairly difficult.

After almost four hours, Kiff walked out into the hallway and called me in. I was nervous but I took a deep breath and followed him back into the classroom. He sat on the desk with his cup of coffee by his side, sipping from it as I stood in the middle of the room in front of him. I took another breath, and then I told him that I've been doing research on him, and I told him that I was going to confront him with everything I knew, because I wasn't going to let him hide anymore.

He started laughing like a maniac, and he said that I wouldn't find anything, and that he knew I was lying. Whenever I tried to speak, he'd cut me off telling me off and trying to call my bluff. He kept laughing and laughing, and then he spoke in a serious tone, saying "Even if you do know anything, it's not going to leave this room," and then he kept laughing, but I managed to get out the words "Alleyway 37"

When I said that, he stopped laughing for a moment and looked offended, almost taken aback by what I said, and then a giant grin cast across his face. "So you've really been doing some digging, huh Nomad? I thought I redacted all of that,"

"You forgot the first page, pedo,"

"So What? You can't really threaten me with that," He said grinning.

"I don't know if you did anything, but I have reason to believe you did,"

"You can't prove that, Nomad,"

"Good point, but that's not the only thing I know about,"

"What else do you know?"

"You killed your wife, didn't you? Heather Rose? And what about your kid?"

"Again, you can't prove that, but you're making a fool of yourself bringing all of this up to my face,"

"You killed your son, didn't you?"

"*sigh* I might as well be honest with you, it's not like you're gonna get away," I felt my heart drop as he said that, and I could tell I was sweating. "No I didn't kill him, but I have no clue what happened to him, I left him in the streets because I could care less about him,"

"I take it you're going to admit to Alleyway 37 too, right?"

"Oh that was a fun one. I'm pretty proud of that," He laughed and sipped his coffee, staring daggers at me behind his smile.

"I know about that first page of your crimes, and I've seen some of the other pages too, I take it you've seen those before,"

"I see them all the time, and now that you've seen them, well you might wish you didn't."

"What about the Randall Scandal? How did you do it?" I could see in his eyes that it made him mad, and he was getting serious and impatient. Something about that crime really set him off, and he looked me dead in the eyes and spoke in a serious tone.

"You've done enough digging, Nomad. You better start running. I'll give you a head start." I froze for a second and watched him sip his drink, and then I took his advice and got the fuck out of there as fast as I could, running out of the school and into the streets. The sidewalks were covered in the fresh December snow, but the roads were free of traffic and recently plowed, making them clear to run down.

I took out my phone and called the police, but when I explained my situation, the receptionist didn't believe me. She thought it was a joke, but I pleaded with her to send help because I knew that he was chasing me, but I just couldn't see him. I looked back every couple of seconds, but the streets were completely empty and far too silent. I held out the phone in front of me, and then a dagger pierced right through it.

I stopped for a second and turned around, and I saw Kiff standing on a rooftop with a bunch of throwing knives in his hands and an eerie smile on his face. I turned and ran, and as I was running, I felt one of the knives enter my shoulder, but it didn't stop me. I ran through the streets, making as much turns as I could, but he was always right behind me, and pelting me with daggers.

I could barely move, but I got to the end of the street, and then I pulled out the board and cast the spell, looking back at him as I hopped through the wormhole and out of the city streets. In the split second I saw him staring back at me, I laughed at him seeing the pure anger in his face seeing me get away from him, although I was injured. Everything went bright, and then my eyes adjusted to the sunset over Telkomi.

I was pretty high in the sky, and I scrambled to get my parachute from my pocket dimension as I was falling fast towards the ground, and I managed to draw it and open it as I was falling after failing to open it a couple of times. As I looked at the ground below me that got slowly closer, I scanned for a house, and luckily there was one nearby, close to a river and a massive open area where there wasn't any trees, that seemed to be a massive clearing that was shaped like a perfect rectangle.

I looked down to the ground for a good spot to land near the house. The massive clearing was too far from the house and it was getting dark, so I didn't want to have to travel all the way to the house in the dark. I found a good spot but was tiny so I would have to make a pretty tight maneuver to land properly. I slowly fell through the trees trying to make sure my parachute didn't get caught in the tall and thick of the forest.

I made it to the ground safely but I was covered in pine needles and snow that was dumped from the trees I wedged myself between to land. The snow in the clearing was pretty thick and tall, forcing me to walk cautiously though the snow to get to the house, trying not to completely soak my running shoes with snow and sap. The house wasn't too far, and I could just barely see the walls of the building through the trees.

I walked through the snow, awkwardly walking with a wide stance to wet as little of my clothes as possible. When I got to the door, it swung open towards me, pushing the snow out of the way of the door. I got inside and shook myself onto the mat in the front of the building. I flipped the light switch, and somehow the place had power. I assumed it must be powered by a solar generator or possibly something else.

The place didn't seem to be inhabited, and yet the power was on and the place was furnished. The place looked like a small cabin from the outside, only having a living room, a kitchen and one bedroom with two beds, but when I went into the basement, there was a lot more space for storage and a couple of other bedrooms, all being built up and something I wouldn't expect from a basement level, it's like what I expected from the main level.

There was a second basement which was more like a typical basement, with a wine cellar and tons of shelves, all having random objects strewn about them. The place looked well lived in, and It's what I would expect from a family home, yet nobody has been recorded to live here. These houses haven't been well documented, and the ones that are well documented are the ones that are the closest to the shore.

According to the books I started reading when I got to the island, nobody knows anything about who built these homes and why, and it it's also unknown how they even get their power, because their generators were never found, and it appears that there were no solar panels anywhere near the homes, which seemed to contradict my theory that the homes were solar powered, but if they weren't solar powered, then how did they get their energy?

One of my only theories was that there could be an electricity grid, but there weren't any visible electrical wires connecting the homes. There must be something powering these buildings, but what could that be? The whole island felt like it was cloaked in mystery, and I was unsure if that was because it was such a different place or if it really was cloaked in mystery. There was definitely something else going on here.

I was sure of that, but there was nothing I could realistically do to prove my theory. I knew something was strange here because of the houses, but I didn't know exactly what it was. I began to think about it more, and the most plausible outcome is that this was an old research base, and these random homes strewn about the forest-covered island were merely used as research stations, but if so wouldn't there be any research equipment?

It was strange to think about, and it was one of the only things I thought about in the first couple of days other than survival, yet I couldn't stop myself. Something about the mystery of this island was so interesting to me, and it only made me want to stay even more than before to try and uncover the secrets of this island. I wanted to find something, anything, but it would be a while before I found anything other than food.

- About 4 or 5 weeks later -

I was doing pretty well for myself, and now that January had begun somewhat recently, the worst of the winter months was over, giving way to the more mellow temperatures of January, although I wasn't too sure how much into January I was because I had all but lost track of the days, focusing on things day by day had made me forget to worry about specific dates, because all I needed to know about the date was what month it was.

I was doing pretty well for myself and even though a lot of the forest animals were hibernating, I was still able to get a good amount of food, even getting a small surplus which I stored in the freezer in the low basement. There was a stove in the kitchen as well as a grill, so I could cook my meat well, and there was even a well stocked spice cabinet, something I never thought of getting when I started preparing for my long stay.

Some nights I found myself watching the stars through the windows or the skylight in the roof of the living room, where you can look up to the sky whilst laying on the couch and watch the stars. On some nights I would fall asleep on the couch, watching the stars shine brightly against the moonlight sky. This night was like many others when I started to fall asleep on the couch, but that night something felt weird.

I couldn't tell what emotion I was picking up, but it was something that I thought could be a slight dread. It almost felt like I had just woken up from a dream yet I couldn't discern the dream from reality, however I was sure I wasn't dreaming. I walked to the north window and looked out into the dark forest, and I thought I heard something outside, almost like a single choral note droning out over the horizon.

I waited for it to end, but it didn't only turning into a lower note with tiny spaces between the notes that were almost incoherent as the noise reverberated through the trees and out into the open air. It was such a strange sound, and I went to go and investigate what it was. I put on my boots and a large jacket, as well as heavier snow pants to keep me warm. It was dark outside and pretty chilly, although I was pretty warm in all of my gear.

I stepped through the forest, and as I walked aimlessly trying to find the source of the noise, I only had one thought. The giant empty rectangle that was about 4 kilometers from the house was where I was headed, having never gone there before. I referred to it as the Border Plains due to it seemingly being bordered off, preventing any trees from growing inside of it, or anything besides grass for that matter, and I didn't even know if there was any grass due to the snow.

I wasn't sure why I never went there before, but it seemed to have a weird aura about it, and whenever I got close while hunting, I never went in and walked parallel to it in the woods, looking for game that I would hunt for food. I slowly made my way through the heavy packed snow that blanketed the forest floor on route to the Border Plains, and as I walked through the trees, the sound started to get louder.

Getting closer, I could make out the sound to be a song. I didn't recognise the song, nor did I recognise the words being sung. I couldn't even make out the words being sung out, soft and sweet over the trees and the plains. When I began to get close to the Border Plains, I got a sense of dread again, a sense that began to swell as I made my way towards the open plains, pulling myself through the thick snow that bounced off of my jacket and snow pants.

As I got right up to the edge of the tree line looking out into the plains, the feeling of dread came to a head, and it persisted for a bit as I walked out into the plains. I stepped out into the massive open area and looked around at the landscape laid out in front of me, almost impossibly smooth reaching out from tree line to tree line. The snow followed the slight hill contour of the ground beneath it.

I walked slowly through the plains, trying to make as little noise as possible and headed towards the large hill in the middle of the plains. The soft and sweet vocal melodies were now completely clear, no more shrouded in echo as the sound waves bounced between the trees. The open air carried the sweet melody to my ears, and I was able to make out clear words, however I couldn't make out much of the lyrics.

The melody was ominous, almost as if it were a warning of something. I walked up to the first hill being closest to the eastern wall of the rectangle, being one of the shorter sides of the plains. It was much shorter when compared to the much longer north and south sides of the rectangle. As I stood atop the hill, being not too far from the tree line behind me, I could see out much further than before.

Standing on the hill, I saw a figure on the other side of the plains, standing beside the tree line, standing and singing out into the wind, likely not knowing I was watching. I didn't have the flashlight on my jacket turned on, so it was much harder to see me against the night, and I was only able to barely make out their silhouette against the snow that glistened in the moonlight that shone down on the ground.

I didn't really want to do anything other than listen to the song as it carried over the wind and snow. The music was hypnotizing and I just stood on the hill listening to the sound fill the air. It was beautiful, and I never stopped to wonder about it. I began to think and I realised how strange it was that there was someone who seemed to be somewhat tall just out here in the middle of nowhere in Telkomi singing, but then I heard something else.

From within the forest behind me, I heard an otherworldly howl. It was loud and it reverberated through the trees and out into the plains I stood in. The soft singing stopped and I looked back towards the figure on the other end of the plains, and I saw it turn around and run into the trees behind it. I turned around and looked towards the eastern wall of the Border Plains and thought about going inside.

I turned on the light on my jacket, and although it did cast a lot of light, my visibility still wasn't great. It made me feel slightly more safe though, and I started to walk towards the forest where the noise came from. As I got about halfway down the hill, I got the same sense of dread that befell me earlier, and I stopped in my tracks. I heard something running through the woods very faintly, but then it got closer.

I hoped that whatever made that noise wasn't coming towards me, but as I waited, I couldn't move. The sense of dread was all I felt and I felt the fear in my heart grow and grow. My heart was beating out of my chest and I was scared out of my mind, but all I could do was wait. I didn't want to wait and find out but there was nothing else I could do. I thought that if I stayed still, that whatever it was would ignore me, but I was wrong.

The forest fell silent for a moment, not even the wind I could feel on my face made a noise. The silence was broken by the sounds of the creature shuffling through the woods. I could hear it scuttling through the trees, making its way past the trees and snow. It snapped twigs and branches as it walked slowly through the trees just ahead of me, making a loud thump with every step.

It got closer and then I saw it through the trees. It was in the distance and obscured by the other trees ahead of it, obscuring its body. All I could make out were two long legs and a skinny body through the dark trees. My flashlight didn't cut into the shadows of the forest, making me unable to see what was in there. I watched it intently, studying its every move, but then it turned around and ran through the trees and out into the plains towards me.

I was completely frozen in fear, but as it ran at me, I could make out exactly what it looked like. It looked like a giant deer, but there was something really off about it. It had thick fur that covered its lanky arms and legs, stopping at its large bony hands and feet which featured sharp claws. Its body was short and skinny, making its ribcage visible through the black and grey fur that covered the thing's body.

Its head looked strange too, featuring lines that ran from its snout and out to the back of its head, as well as two that ran from either side of its cheeks to the back of its head, making a cross pattern embedded on its face. Its eyes were sunken and its antlers were huge and sprawling. It had wispy black hairs that covered its long neck that hung down. The whole thing looked like it was rotting, but it was still very much alive.

It ran towards me, and I stumbled backwards and climbed up the hill as fast as I could, still facing it. It stopped in front of me, standing over me and breathing heavily. Its body absorbing the light from my flashlight. It smelt like death and its body almost felt wet as it breathed on top of me. It sniffed me like a dog and then stood up, its body jutting up into the sky in an awkward way as it sprang up off the ground.

It grunted at me in a playful manner, and it seemed somewhat docile. It howled again as it stood over me, the sound reverberating through the empty plains. As it howled, it's mouth moved in a strange way, and then snapped back into place when it closed its maw. It looked down at me and I reached out to touch it. I brought my hand up and placed it above its snout, and it purred and cooed like a cat.

I wasn't really sure what to do at that point. My heart was still beating out of my chest even though the thing was friendly. I decided to walk back to the house, and as I walked through the trees the thing followed me. I walked in and when I opened the door, I turned around and looked at it. It tilted its head and then looked at me with its white eyes, and then it took off into the forest, letting a low and quiet howl as it did.

I wasn't too sure what to think about it, but I felt like it was a pet. The thing was massive compared to me, and I thought that it was only friendly because I wasn't worth it to eat. I thought about it and although it was a really strange thought, but it made sense to me. I had a thought that maybe I could tame the beast, but I still wanted to try and learn more about it. I went to sleep, and when I woke up the next morning, I waited for nightfall again to go out looking for it.

When the sun fell past the horizon and darkness fell above the trees, I set out again in search of the strange creature. I went straight for the place I had seen it before, that being the Barrier Plains. I walked out into the snow and stood atop the large hill I was pinned against yesterday and waited. I looked up to the stars that shone bright above and breathed in the clear air. The air felt crisp that night, not being as stuffy as it was the previous night.

I stood atop the hill, and then I begun to think about what was drawing it to me, and I thought it could have been the light. I turned on the small light on my jacket, and they I brought out my headlamp and a really heavy-duty flashlight and started turning it on and off, pointing it at the east side of the plains. Although at first nothing was happening at first, as I continued clicking the flashlight on and off, I heard something in the distance.

It sounded like shuffling in the distance, and then I heard that same howl again, but shortly afterwards I heard another one, and then another, and then another. I felt my heart drop, and I turned off all of my lights and laid down in the snow. I crouched down and watched the tree line from the top of the hill and stared out as the beast came forward. It shuffled out of the trees and looked around, its white eyes piercing the darkness.

It ran through the field calling out as it ran, but I still looked towards the tree line, and to my horror, a whole pack of beasts ran through the field, all letting out horrible cries as they did. From what I could see, the one I had seen the previous night was a juvenile, and the adult ones were much larger and beefier. They ran to the center of the massive field and once I was sure the last one had come from the trees, I turned around and looked at the beasts.

They all congregated in the center of the field and looked around wildly. They all started sniffing the air around them, all scattering in different directions as they did. A couple of them started walking in my direction, but only one continued towards me, that being the largest one. It walked slowly towards me as I laid on my back looking up at it, staying completely still, or at least trying to stay still.

I was breathing heavily and sweating, but I managed to stay pretty still as the creature made its way to me, and when it got to me, it stood over me on all fours. It sniffed me intently, saliva coming from its maw, and then it brought its head up, it called to the others in a strange yell, and they all came rushing towards me, their bodies blocking out the starlight from the night sky.

I felt an unimaginable fear pass trough my mind as they stood over me, just staring at me with their tiny white eyes. They made strange noises as they all sniffed me, all of them doing the same thing. They would sniff me then rub their heads on my chest, seemingly a sign of affection or a truce. The largest one still looked towards me with its eyes, looking intently at me as the others inspected me.

After they all did the same thing, it let out a loud and horrible wail, as it did its maw opened up wide, and the fur on its face split open like a flower as it yelled, splitting into four parts revealing a hard skull underneath that looked almost as if it was rotting away. I tried to yell in fear, but nothing came out when I tried. The four segments of its face slid back into place as its maw closed, making an awful squishing noise as the pieces connected to each other.

The others all did the same thing, and then the largest beast made its way to the west, and the rest followed it. The same one that I saw yesterday stayed behind for a moment and rubbed its head against my chest again, and let out a cooing sound before it ran away with the rest of the group. As they all left, I felt the fear and dread wash away, but my heart was still beating out of my chest, and I was still shaken up from what had happened.

I stood up and wiped the slobber off my chest. I stared off into the forest they all ran into and I started to wonder about what these things were. They definitely weren't any coronians, or at least no coronian I had seen. These things didn't talk to each other and they were less like pandorians and humans, unlike coronians who are pretty much larger, thicker, fluffier pandorians, but these creatures weren't that.

These beasts were wild and acted almost like wild wolves or dogs, much like you would see deep into the woods alongside the coronians, often tamed by coronians as well. They also seemed very strange in the way they looked. Their bodies were extremely skinny, and one wouldn't expect a creature of the north being that skinny, and I also had no clue what it ate, I just hoped it wasn't pandorians.

Something about them didn't seem natural or regular to me. The way their faces split off like a flower opening up was terrifying, and I thought about it as being some sort of defence mechanism, because what else could it be? But that got me thinking. If these large creatures needed something like that, then what were they defending themselves from? Pandorians don't come up here, and as far as I know no coronians do either.

That begs the question of if these things have evolved with that or if they're some sort of terrible science experiment gone horribly wrong and producing these.. things that might have been dogs at one point. I didn't think they were natural, but I couldn't know for sure, and if they weren't made naturally by evolution over countless generations, than what did make these things? Who made things? I didn't think I would ever find out.

## Hollow, Ironhall, IZ144/6/76 (K), Saturday, November 27, 2058, Mars Cellio -Resistance-

It's been a hard few weeks lately. Just when things are going smooth, one small thing happens and everything starts bearing down on you. It doesn't help when you've got enough shit on your hands to deal with. I've been part of the mafia movement for a long time, because things haven't been good for a long time. I've always thought that we needed change, and when the group started to gain traction I felt the need to join.

Ever since then I've been part of the mafia here in Ironhall, the largest city in Hollow. At first I was a bit nervous about it, but I eventually got used to the lifestyle after a couple of months. Sometimes I think about why I really joined, other than seeing the issues with the government, but I also saw issues with the general population and everyone who blindly followed our leaders who don't know what they're doing. It's stupid and I don't get why people do it, but who am I to criticize the government?

I've had a deep hatred for the government and the whole system when my older brother got sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit. Even though it was five years ago, I never really got over it. He was my best friend and I hung out with him all of the time and even though I'm allowed to see him at least once a week, I still miss him a lot. After I finished my shift at my advertisement company and headed towards my car. The mid-day air felt warm on my face as I walked through the courtyard of the marketing agency.

Even though my family owns possibly the largest tech company in the world, I was never too interested in tech, and I've much more enjoyed creating advertising. Although sometimes my company likes to embellish things which is something I am pretty against, I enjoy the process of planning and creating advertising. I've always been interested in art and photography so it seemed like a very sensible thing to do. Also, I've always felt like the company was a bit dishonest with the way they market their products, but whatever makes the most money I guess.

I started the car and started making my way down to Ironhall Penitentiary, the prison where my brother was being held. I still can't believe that man got away with framing my brother. I saw everything that happened that day, and even if I hadn't seen anything I would have known he was innocent. He was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he paid the price for it. It's for that reason that I hate this stupid law system, for allowing a guilty man to walk free and letting my innocent brother be jailed.

After a short while, I was at the prison. It wasn't too far from the marketing agency, both buildings being in the heart of Ironhall. I parked my car and got my ID ready, and showed it to the guard up front. He let me through without a word, as he'd seen me come through here many times to visit Rellom so pretty much all of the guards let me through, knowing of my purpose. I walked through the front lobby and walked the familiar path towards the viewing area, where he was already waiting for me behind the glass. I picked up the phone at the desk and we started to talk.

"Hello Rellom, how have things been lately?"

"Well the usual. Rotting in jail over nothing, but I'm glad you come to visit me."

"All in a day's work you know,"

"You're always talking about work, huh? With your two jobs and all?"

"Can you really call it a job? it's more of a hobby isn't it?"

"I guess you could say that, but how are things going with your hobby then?"

"Well... (let me think of a way to phrase this) I have a big meeting coming up. All of us here in Ironhall are gonna meet up in Downtown Hollow and celebrate."

"Good luck with that and have fun. Also don't get shot, you know how things can get now a days,"

"I'm always careful don't worry. Worst case scenario I end up stuck here with you,"

"Let's hope that doesn't happen," he said in a joking tone as we both laughed. "Anything else?"

"Well you know with people going missing and all, that's rather concerning for us. I really hope they find that kid from Stonemill."

"I've just given up on them being found at this point. I know it's pessimistic, but let's be honest, they're probably not coming home."

"..."

"Sorry, did I kill the mood?"

"You do know that you almost became one of those people who are 'never coming hope', right?"

"How could I forget. I know you're still a bit sensitive about that."

"It isn't fair, that's all."

"Nothing's fair, Mars. We both know that. We both saw him do it, but nobody's ever gonna believe us,"

"Except for mom and dad,"

"They know us better than anyone else, of course they would know the truth. But sadly the truth is elusive."

"Every time, Rellom."

"You know the anniversary is coming up, that's on the fifth. Do you want to do something to commemorate that or something?"

"Yes I do. I want to take revenge."

"Whoa whoa, we both know that's a bad idea. As much as I'd love to that's a death sentence."

"I know, I know, but if I wanted to do anything... it's just a thought. I don't even have a plan."

"I'm sure the truth will come out eventually,"

"Yes, but how soon? I don't want to spend my entire life waiting, if only there was anything that could convict him that still exists. He probably destroyed all the evidence knowing him."

"Well, I've heard from some others that there is something like that. They call it "Kiff's tome' because it's this giant book full of uncensored documents that list all of his crimes. There are plenty of copies but as far as I know all of those are censored."

"Then we get our hands on it!"

"Good luck! Nobody knows if it even exists, and every story about his tome tells that he keeps it in his pocket dimension as a trophy or something."

"A girl can dream,"

"There's definitely another way, there has to be."

"I'm sure there is- Oh Shit! The time!"

"Are you late again?"

"Yes! Well it was nice talking to you, and I'll be here the same time next week."

"Goodbye and good luck!"

"See you!"

I collected all my stuff and walked quickly out of the prison. I was indeed late again, the fourth time in a row I was late after a meeting with my brother. I sped down the road and drove through the outer reaches of the town, into the more rural areas of the city. I drove down a main road through the outskirts of town and drove into a parking lot that was seemingly next to a forest trail.

The trail is real, but nobody comes down here because it's so isolated. The only thing out here besides the trail is a tiny little house just beside the main road. I parked my car and walked the small cleared trail along the road towards the house. The house was a small, double story house that stood stark alongside the tree line. It wasn't the first time I'd been here, and I knew it wouldn't be the last.

The house was pretty weathered and busted up. The windows were broken and the house was slumped in the ground. Peeling paint revealed rotting wood that allowed light to shine through from the outside. The door creaked when I pushed on it, the whole building moving with it. The spotted walls let in the dying lights of twilight outside. I walked to the back and down the stairs into the basement, where a steel door faced me.

I pulled out a key and unlocked it and went inside. This was the entrance to our headquarters here in Hollow, secluded from prying eyes and in a good hiding spot. It's not the only base we have on Ironhall, and it isn't the only base we have in Hollow. Because Hollow is such a big city, we're able to have three bases in operation, but we use this one the most because it's the most secluded.

I walked down the stairs and some of the others greeted me and got me up to speed with what was going on. They said that they were going to open the river-way again to allow anything that was in there to come through. The sensors were picking up two large masses that were estimated to be boats. The river-way is a giant network of underground rivers that used to connect different bases during the GCW and Sides War, the last time they were mainly used being in the Pandorra War.

With nobody else using them, we decided to build our bases along these river-ways. It makes travel between bases much easier, and if you can't get to one base, there are plenty of other entrances to the giant river network that spans the whole island. Ironhall isn't the only country who has them, in fact every major country has a network of rivers that lies under the ground and connects the major points of the islands

I was part of the riverworks team so they had to wait for me to open the lock controls. I walked down to the docks, the other members of my team following close behind. I opened the door and walked onto the control platform. I felt powerful as I turned the key, something I had never been able to do before. As I did, the gates opened and a bunch of debris floated through. It looked like the filters needed cleaning.

The sensors inside the tunnels were giving off readings for two large objects which were most likely boats that found their way onto the network. It's not something uncommon, in fact it happens pretty often. Most of the time, it's just people who got lost and we send them through the other side, but a few times it's been enemies of ours, so we weren't taking any chances with that. I sped up the water speed via the control panel and gave the word.

Everyone pulled out their weapons, so that if an enemy came through we couldn't all be killed. The air in the room felt tense as the water rushed through the channel and through the filters embedded in the floors. Random scraps of garbage and plant materials flew down the track, until two makeshift boats came through. I initially thought they were filled with corpses, but then one of them moved.

We stopped the boats and took them out of the water to try and save the people in them. After we identified them to not be a threat to us, we took them to the small hospital in the base. Luckily, there were just enough beds to contain the eleven who had just come through. It was a strange moment, and after they were taken to the hospital, we finished our clearing of the river.

I felt pretty weird about what happened, but I knew there wasn't really anything I could do about it. I'm sure everyone else on the river team thought it was really strange too, and probably everyone else who heard about it. It was no secret and after about an hour, even Jim Pentor, the guy who "never gets told anything!" knew about it. I wasn't complaining, though I was slightly worried.

I had a feeling they might be branded as freeloaders or something, and because they're clearly foreign entities, they should be removed from the fort with force, but I didn't believe that. It was our duty to serve all of the good people of this town, and it would be a disservice to deny them our help when they're on the brink of death. I was also able to deny all of these requests to "get them out of here!" because I was a higher rank than all of them. Some people just don't understand their mission.

After we finished clearing the way, we put an order in for new filters while a couple of others cleaned the old ones. A couple of others from the riverworks team and I went over to the hospital to see how the eleven from the boat were doing. Most of them were awake but a couple hadn't woken up yet. They were all in a stable condition which was good news to me.

Before I started talking to anyone, I got out my computer to take down everything they said. I wanted to interview them on what happened, and it would be helpful to at least get somewhat of an idea of what happened and why they were here for the official report. The higher-ups don't like it when stuff doesn't get put on a record, especially stuff like this and it was my duty to do just that.

"Hello there and I hope you're doing well, my name is Mars Cellio, and I am going to be interviewing you. Everything gets put down on record around here so I've been assigned to do this. Shall we proceed?"

"Yes you may. Before you start, may I ask where I am?"

"Have you heard about the mafia?"

"Oh sweet you guys are the mafia? Nice!"

"I'm glad to hear that, they're not too keen on outsiders here. Anyways, the interview. May I ask for your name first and some other information so I can put it down on here? It's not easy to do these things without your information."

"Oh sure it's fine. My name is Cassie Lishir, I'm thirteen years old and I'm from the town of Parnilo in Temoli to the north. I-"

"Temoli? Really? How did you get here then? That's super far."

"It's a long story, and I'd rather not get into it..."

"That's fine, it isn't really necessary. Can you tell me the full story about how you and the other ten ended up in the riverworks. Go into as much detail as possible please, if you may."

"Well, let's see. It's kind of a long story, but I'll tell it as best as I can. So it all started when I got to Stonemill. Unfortunately, when I got there I was right in the centre of a coronian base, and well they did a couple random tests on me and determined I was really important to them somehow. And then twenty one of us were chosen to take part in this horrible experiment..."

"go on,"

"They were doing experiments with dead people... playing with the fabric of life itself... cheating death. They took us one by one, and they said if it worked, then we would be immortal, but we all knew we weren't going to make it. One by one, at random we were all chosen. Imagine waiting for your name to be called out of a list... and that meant you were certainly going to die. They got through ten and then they went on lunch break.

We were all so worried, we thought we were all doomed, and then someone came through. We never learned his name, but he had been watching what they were doing and he wanted to put a stop to it, so he did. He got eleven large boxes and we all crammed ourselves inside them. I don't even know how but he managed to get us out of the base that way, and he left us floating down the river."

"seems like a bit of a jerk move, doesn't it?"

"I don't think so, I'd rather be in a cardboard box floating down a river than crammed into a tiny, stuffy room waiting to be killed."

"Fair enough."

"So we all pulled ourselves from the river when we got to this one part that was frozen, and we made ourselves some makeshift boats and stole all the food we could find from this random house in the woods. Once we got enough supplies, we crafted two boats out of anything we could find in the woods and anything we had in our pocket dimensions."

"Wait, so you're telling me that you sailed from Stonemill to Ironhall on those crappy boats?"

"Clearly they weren't crappy if we made it, but we did. We somehow landed near this giant cave which we stayed in for a couple of days, and then we found an underground river, and that's how we got here."

"Holy shit, well then. Thank you for that. I never would have expected that you went from Stonemill to probably the coast near the Seamark Straight."

"Why do they call it Seamark if it's pretty far from the coast? Is it named after the Seamark straight or something?"

"Yes it is. There used to be a network that carried water and goods from the coast closest to the East of Stonemill which is where a lot of the goods came from. For a long time this network had to follow the edge of the plains to avoid deforestation, and naturally the route made a sharp turn where Seamark now is, and they decided to set up a town there."

"Is it really as bad as they say it is?"

"Yep. I've been there a couple of times on official business and it gets pretty hairy up there. Seamark is always gonna be a small town in the shadow of Ironhall. I'm surprised it hasn't become a ghost town. It's only about 2500 KM, sure it's a long move but is it really that inescapable?"

"Could be, I have no clue. My country's probably one of the most isolated islands that's actually populated. We have one town and it's got about 12 000 people in it. It's a decent place and the people are generally pretty nice..."

"It sounds like a great place, why would you ever want to leave?"

"..."

"Oh you don't want to get into it huh? Well I won't press you on that. We've all got stories that are too hard to share. I've got a couple too..."

After a short while, I learned everyone's names as I interviewed them all, trying to get the story from different perspectives. It was strange to see that most of them had come from different places, and only a couple of them were actually from Stonemill. It seems the enemy is much more persistent than we'd thought in trying to accomplish their goal. After I finished interviewing everyone, I put all the information into a formal report and sent it to the head office.

Even though I was dismissed of my duties for the day, I still wanted to stay with the group and learn a bit more about them. Most of them were pretty willing to tell me a lot about themselves, and I tried my best to learn everyone's names and remember at least one thing about them, even if it was a small thing. I made a short mental list for myself to help me remember them all.

Kosa Kinnitari - A very motivated woman with a strong heart, whose pretty quick on her feet and has a lot of experience,

Jude Kinnitari - A very laid back boy but is still just as well-trained as his sister,

Cassie Lishir - A younger windy boy who can't seem to get himself out of trouble,

Koko - A Mysterious person who wasn't willing to reveal too much about their past or even about themself,

Aster Arexis - A man with knowledge and a heart of gold, who knows maybe a bit too much,

Noah Arexis - A much younger brother of Aster's who had been roped into a crazy life, but still managed to just barely keep up,

Nebula Zaminta - A trained warrior who seemed pretty keen on fighting the enemy without regard for her own safety,

Dakota Tasdurst - A man who is determined to search for the truth, wherever that may lead him,

Dan Komina - A boy who seemed to hold a lot of secrets that not even they knew the answers to,

Warren Hill - An earth elemental who doesn't ever seem to be in the right place,

and finally, Liz Shay - A girl from Seamark who wanted to get to the bottom of its many secrets, just like her brother tried to before they went missing.

I got along pretty well with most of them, but something in me didn't really trust Koko. I knew they were as good as the others, but they seemed to know too much. Aster knew too much too, but I could tell for sure he was on our side, as if he wasn't then the enemy would have been able to do things much quicker. It seemed that everyone had secrets, some more than others and I'm not a person who likes to be lied to. It felt weird knowing that they were deliberately keeping things from me, but there wasn't anything I could do other than get to know them.

I stayed at the base all night and I went to bed pretty late, sleeping in one of the dorm rooms on-site. Luckily, I didn't have work the next day so I was clear to help out at the base all day. There were a decent number of random things I had to do around the base, but it wasn't difficult work in the slightest; just time consuming.

I spent all day working with my crew on repairs and improvements to the systems in place, and I spent another night sleeping at the base. Things were getting stressful the next day and there was a good reason for that; there was going to be a rally tomorrow in Ironhall for the resistance, and everybody was going, well almost everybody.

There was so much stress and confusion because we still had to decide who would be staying at the base and who would be attending the rally. There had to be at least five or six people who would have to stay back normally, and probably more with all the work being done on the riverworks and the eleven who came through it.

I knew for sure I was going as I was going to be delivering the opening speech. I was a bit nervous about it, but I told myself that I was going to be fine. Living such a dangerous life has it's drawbacks. The rally was going to take place in one of the abandoned sectors of town for obvious reason.

Nobody really knows why there's so many abandoned sectors of the cities in Hollow, especially Seamark. At least a third of Seamark is completely abandoned and mostly empty. There was initially a debate to do it in Seamark, but that idea got quickly shot down when people remembered how dangerous that place was. People seem to understate just how bad it is there.

Today's work was much easier than yesterday's, but it wasn't without stress. All everybody was talking about was the rally because it was important. We've held rallies before but apparently something about this one was different in some way. I was excited and so was everyone else. These rallies mean a lot to us and even a smaller scale one is well worth the wait.

The atmosphere of the entire base was electric and filled with excitement throughout the day, and on my breaks I practiced my speech. I could never get it right and I started to worry about it, but I remembered what my brother told me once. "You'll never get it perfect, as long as it's right than you'll be fine". Even though it wasn't super profound, it always stuck with me for reasons I'm rather unsure of.

- November 30 -

The Morning Air felt cold on my face as I walked to my car in the parking lot. There was no order to who was going in what order, as long as we got there we were fine. It must have been odd to be an onlooker watching a convoy of cars speeding down the road, especially a road such as this that barely gets used.

We took the Line 23 along the outskirts of Ironhall until we got to the abandoned areas of the city up to the north. We entered the abandoned Charlie's District of the city and parked. Cars lined up and down the empty streets as members of the resistance stepped out of their cars and headed to the meeting spot.

The rally was being held in a large courtyard between two old buildings. The area used to be a pick nick area when this part of the city was being used. Food trucks would come here, families would eat and have fun, bands would play on the large stage at the far long end of the area, but now they're gone.

I walked ahead of the forming crowd and took my place on the stage. In the meantime as we waited for the event to start, I and the other speakers practiced our lines and wished each other luck. Although I had gotten there around 2 hours before it started, the time went by really fast, and before long we were starting.

Exactly nine minutes after 13 O'clock, her Majesty Mrs. Dean Thompson walked up to the front podium and introduced the event. She was one of the fourteen founders of the resistance movement, and she had always been a huge role model for me. I watched with intent as she gave the first rites.

"Today we are gathered here to celebrate not only the thirteenth anniversary of the forming of our resistance here in Ironhall, but the formation of the whole global resistance just a year later, all happening on November 30. Today we remember the struggles we faced in the past and the ones we lost, but we also look ahead to a bright future. Please stand for the Anthem of the Resistance."

Although everyone in the crowd was already standing, us who were seated rose up. The triumphant horns of the band echoed between the walls of the buildings, signifying a hopeful future. I had always been a fan of the anthem, and especially today it seemed so amazing. Once the band was finished, Mrs. Thompson stepped aside from the podium and I stepped forwards.

I walked up to the podium a bit shaky and nervous, but my friends behind me wished me luck. I looked out into the crowd and stared at all the faces of our people, shining brilliantly in the light of the darkness. I took in a deep breath and checked the microphone, and then I began to speak.

"Men, Women, Pandorians, Pandoreals, Coronians, Everyone who is here with me today, you are all here because you are brave and because you saught the opportunity to fight. What happens daily in our world is harsh and unfair, but we stand up to change that. YOU stand up to change that. In the face of the darkest hour and the bleakest moments, we do not run away from fear, yet we conquer it! We remember all of those who gave their lives for the just cause, and their sacrifice is not in vein, for they fought as hard as they could and paid the ultimate price.

But I do not look to the past, I look to the future. A Bright future where corruption is not rampant, where governments are fair, where the rich do not control everything. This is our time to stand up! We will shout as loud as we can and we will defy those in power! We will revolt and we will not stand down, not as long as we are alive! The challenge is great but it is not something we cannot face! No longer will we fear for our lives just for ideals, as we will fight back! Fight for a new day, a day where the world is just! We will not be controlled!

In the face of the world, we will rise up! We will Tear down those who have no place to be above us, those whose greed controls their lives and actions! We will not be controlled by greed or hate, we will not stand anymore in this horrible society, We will stand tall in the face of fear! We Will change the world!"

I got so passionate that I was shaking by the end of the speech, but everyone in the crowd was cheering and shouting. They loved it. I felt pretty happy about that, and when I sat back down, the girl two seats across from me reached over the now vacant chair to say I did an amazing job.

I was glad that I was surrounded by such good people. Although the others who spoke didn't match the excitement level I raised, they all did great jobs at inspiring all of us. The fifth speaker was another role model of mine, Mrs. Sasha Calline-Devone, a woman who faced similar circumstances as I did, who rose up and stayed strong in the face of fear.

She's a strong woman who also had her brother framed for a crime, however it was a different person who caused it. She's open about herself and she doesn't care what anyone thinks about her, and she's one of the most sound people I know. She's pretty high above me, but we talk a lot to each other and we've become pretty close with one another, sharing grief in our similarities.

When she went up to the podium, she started to speak on the struggles she faced as a woman. Other than me and the girl who went two after me, she was the only woman and she took that opportunity to speak about her life. It was pretty powerful, especially as a fellow woman and I really respected her for coming out of her shell to do that, but as she spoke, she was cut short in the middle of a sentence.

A single gunshot rung out over her voice, and a bullet grazed a tiny bit of skin off the top of her ear. In a matter of seconds, the entire crowd went wild; the police had shown up guns blazing, and they had backup. Everybody on the stage ducked down as a hail of bullets flew over our heads, tearing through the large flags hung up behind us. It was a bad moment to remember I had left my gun at home.

There were plenty of areas to run away to, but everyone was already running in every direction, except for behind the stage. I ran as quickly as possible through the street behind the stage, a street that led between two tall buildings. I saw others running my way, but they all got shot one my one behind me. I ducked behind the wall, picking up a gun as I did, and I waited patiently for them to come closer.

I felt my heart race as I heard the chaos behind me, and without warning I turned back around and shot the two men who were firing upon me. I got shot in the arm and on my right side, but I wasn't terribly hurt. I ran through the crumbling empty streets for a short while until I came upon a building that seemed suitable. I turned around to make sure the coast was clear, and then I ran inside and shut the door.

I felt my heart racing, and I realised I had been hit more than I thought. I started to calm myself down and I assessed my surroundings. The building was seemingly an old garage of the sort, and it was really dark inside. The only light came through the metal slatted windows on the wall behind me. I was able to look through them and they functioned similarly to loopholes in castle walls.

The whole place smelt weird and there were strange stains covering the concrete floor. The place was quiet, the only ambient noise being the calamity that was occurring a couple blocks away. I knew a lot of my men were armed, but I didn't know how well they were doing. I knew we had lost a lot, but I didn't want to accept it. I felt myself start to cry, and I felt pretty embarrassed and weak.

I didn't want to think about what could have happened to everyone else and in the moment I was just thinking about myself. I felt bad for killing people, even though it was in self defence. It was the first time I killed anyone, and I wasn't sure if I could do it again, even under the same circumstances. I felt cold and I felt as bad as Kiff, but I knew I wasn't. They weren't innocent, and I was merely acting to protect myself, but I couldn't shake the bad thoughts.

I couldn't stop myself from peering out the window, staring out into the empty streets. I had a longing sense of dread that someone was going to come looking for me, but I knew that likely wasn't going to happen. I was close to the park, I was probably a block away from the buildings behind the stage. I could still clearly hear the calamity going on just outside.

I listened for anything, and my heart dropped when I heard footsteps. I looked around outside, but then I realised they were coming from behind me. I turned around and saw a boy walking towards me in the darkness. His hair was shaggy, and he and his clothes looked to be covered in some kind of ink, but I assumed it was oil seeing as this was a garage.

I was a bit worried, but I didn't feel threatened by him. He didn't look like he had bad intent, he just looked dazed and lost. His glasses hung low on his face, gripping for dear life over the tops of his ears. His eyes looked glossy in the darkness and he seemed to stand there. We both stared at each other for a couple of moments, the only sound being the chaos outside, until he spoke.

"What are you doing here? You don't belong,"

"I-I was fleeing. Some crazy shit went down and I nearly died. I just ducked into the best cover I could find,"

"Is that why you're bleeding?"

"Yea, I got shot, but I'm fine."

"Are you sure you're fine?" his question made me think quite a bit. I knew what he was referring to, but it made me think about everything.

"No, I'm not fine. Is there any gauze here or anything like that? Like a first aid kit?"

"Yes there is, let me go get it,"

I watched him jog off into the darkness, his white shirt covered in dark splatters disappearing into the black. I felt a bit more hopeful now that I was able to get help, but I couldn't shake the weird feeling this place gave me, nor the fear I was feeling because of what happened at the rally. I stared into the darkness and watched him run back with a white metal tin.

He set it on the ground, and I could make out splatters and scratches on the beaten box. It was pretty obvious it'd been through a lot of shit. He helped me pull out the bullets and bandage my arm and side. He closed the tin and ran to put it away, and then he ran back. He must have known I was pretty lonely, because he said he wanted to stay with me and talk for a bit.

"So, we don't have anything else to do, wanna talk?"

"Why not? Well, what is there really to talk about? There's barely anything here,"

"There isn't much to see here, but most of the things that are here are downstairs."

"There's another level?"

"Yeah, and it's much larger than this level and almost all of us sleep there, but I and a few others have to sleep up here."

"Really? How much of you guys are there?"

"Well, there were at least 100 of us that came here or were born here, but" I wasn't so sure what about his words was so sad to me. It could have been the implications, but I really felt the pure bleakness that this soulless place radiated. Even though I had just me him, something about his story really got to me. I wanted to break him out, and everyone else who was trapped here for that matter. They didn't deserve this.

"Hmm. This place already freaked me out enough, but with that it's even worse."

"It's worse, I'm sorry to tell you. We're not the only ones here."

"Who else is here?"

"We don't really know, but whatever they are, they're hostile."

"what,"

"We also don't really know what they're capable of, but we try our best to fight back. That's why I sleep up here."

"Is that why.. never mind,"

"Never mind what?"

"It's nothing. Oh shit, I should probably let someone know I'm safe,"

"You have something to communicate with others outside of here?"

"Yeah, it's inside my pocket dimension, but I don't know if I can access it here,"

"Pocket Dimension?"

"Every person has access to one, and there are certain devices that block them from being accessed."

"Interesting, I never knew that I had one,"

"You can put whatever you want inside, as long as it fits because there's limited space. How did you not know that?"

"The outsiders don't tell us about the outside world at all, and I'm not sure why,"

"Well I'm gonna break you out of here, so it doesn't matter."

I tried to access my pocket dimension, but it was pretty clear to see there was a jammer in the area. I lost hope for a moment, but then I remembered something. I rummaged through my jacket pockets, and in the last one I looked inside, I found what I was looking for. It was a pager! Pretty old-fashioned, but they're a good way to communicate because you can pull it out and message someone if you need. They're also apparently allowed in prisons.

The first thing I did was send a message to Rellom, asking him if he'd been watching the news recently. While I waited for a response, I sent a message to the base to let them know where I was. "Cellio, Mars. Status: Alive and well with minor injuries. Trapped inside abandoned building, but searching for a way out. Do not send backup there still seems to be presence of the enemy. Signing out for now, M. Cellio." Right as I sent the second message, Rellom responded.

"Of course I have. They said you were dead, but I know better than to trust the news,"

"I'm very much alive, but I'm locked inside this abandoned building. Searching for a viable way out."

"Good luck,"

"Thanks, I will need it."

Our situation was pretty bleak, but I had hope. Even though I just met this boy, something about him made me want to help him. He felt like a younger brother to me, and a brother was something I dearly missed. He felt close yet I didn't even know his name. I wanted to break him out, as well as the others. They didn't deserve being trapped in this awful place, but a devilish thought crept up into my brain.

What if they were here for a reason? Of course there was *A* reason, but what that reason is could be anything. Perhaps they're innocent as they seem, or maybe they're just as bad at Kiff and just as good at hiding it. As the two of us talked, I kept this in the back of my mind. The possibility that I was going to get backstabbed and left for dead wasn't out of the question, however I really hoped it was.

I just wanted a friend. I had always had a lot of friends at work, but I never had another someone like Rellom. It wasn't a sexual relationship I wanted, I just wanted love, someone to be there for me, and now that I met this man, I had hope that we could get along like that, but I had a feeling I was going to do something to fuck it up. Life's always like that, and I wanted a change for once. I've always wanted change, but sometimes it never comes.

Maybe I'll be stuck here too, but I was going to do everything I could to stop that from happening. No matter how long it would take, no matter what would happen, I was going to break out of this place. I thought about my plan as I slept in the darkness that I knew very well could become my new home, but I didn't want that to happen. I couldn't just give up, and so I didn't. I did my best, and at the end of that day, I felt proud of myself. Even though I nearly died, I was still alive. Even though I was trapped here and sleeping on an air mattress, I was still living, and that's what it means to be alive, isn't it?

## Windswept Valley, Stonemill, IZ144/6/76 (K), ?, ?, ?, 20??, Josh Yolipa - Leave this World Behind -

Rain fell through the gaps in the trees, splashing on the muddy forest floor. I was walking through the forest floor, trying to get up north back to Downtown Brandon. I knew that if I kept going through the forest, I was bound to hit something. I walked and walked through endless trees, feeling the fresh forest air enter my lungs and replace the dusty air I was breathing for the longest time.

I was optimistic at first that I would eventually find something, but after wandering aimlessly through the wet forest I was starting to doubt it. In such a giant forest, you would expect there to be at least something, even something natural, but as far as I could see through the tight growth of tall trees, there wasn't anything in the distance. It felt like a dream, and a sense of dread began to wash over me.

I tried to avoid it, but that's what I get for walking into a forest completely alone in the rain. There weren't even any boulders on the ground, just dirt and mud and water. I was starting to develop a tunnel vision, but I managed to snap myself out of it. If I wanted to escape this forest, I would have to be alert. When I began to really listen to the sounds of nature, I could hear a distant sound of rushing water.

It took me a minute to locate the direction it was coming from, and although it was distant and quiet, I was still able to pick up on the noise and follow it. It slowly got louder and louder and I started to get more hope. If I could find a river I would have drinking water, something I was pretty low on at that moment, as well as a nice route to somewhere. Everybody knows that if you're lost, you're going to want to find a river.

Rivers generally will lead you to civilisation, and if not a civilisation you will probably find animals or at least something that could help you. I walked through the forest, stopping every couple minutes to make sure I was getting closer. It might not have been the most effective strategy and not nearly the quickest, but after a while I was able to locate the river. I took some of the water from it and boiled it on a field stove so it was completely safe.

I had a lot of food stored in my pocket dimension, but I still wanted to ration it as much as possible. I had a small snack and then I continued down the river, not really knowing where I was going. I took my compass out of my pocket, and after staring at it, I realised something seemed really off. I turned around with it in my hand, holding it up to my eyes, and it didn't take too long to realise the compass was broken.

I threw it on the ground and continued my own way. I didn't need some broken compass pitting me in the wrong direction and getting me even more lost, especially when there was a river right here that I was following. After following it for a little while, I began to hear a louder rushing sound, and there was only one thing that could be. I didn't know of any waterfalls in the forests of Stonemill, but the sound was unmistakable.

I walked down the river as the sound grew louder and louder. The forest began to grow wider as I walked along the river, the gaps between the trees began to grow larger and larger as the forest began to open up. In a small space, the gaps grew significantly larger and the whole forest seemed to open up like a giant maw. Up ahead in the distance, I could see the waterfall far ahead.

When I got there, there were other things here too. On my side of the rider beside it, there was a random staircase that was just sitting there. It looked like it was part of a house at some point, but it was the only thing left of it. It stopped abruptly at the tenth step, curving around at the top part of the staircase. It was in pristine condition and it seemed to deflect the rainwater that was coming down on it from the trees high above.

I wanted to touch it, but I got an overwhelming sense of dread when I got closer to it. The waterfall was tall and part of a giant sheer cliff wall that seemingly came out of nowhere. The staircase wasn't too far from the waterfall, and where it ended was not too far from the edge of the waterline. When I looked around in the ground around the river, I saw something else in the ground.

It was another hatch, not too different from the one I came out of yesterday. I was hit by a wave of grief that almost knocked me off my feet, but I pressed on. It had another ladder that went far down into the ground, however this ladder was much shorter than the other one. I climbed down the ladder and when I got to the bottom and opened the door, I was met with another train station platform.

This one was quite different from the other one though. There were a couple of buttons and the whole place seemed to be much more high-tech and more maintained than the other one which was just a stop. I pressed the button on the wall that said "GETTING ON NEXT TRAIN" and waited. I walked around the platform and cleaned by shoes off. I looked around and saw a sign that read "EAST KINATO STATION STONEMILL"

I had no clue what any of it meant, but I thought that maybe the forest I was in had something to do with it. I don't know anything about the forests of Stonemill, or any other island for that matter, and even though I really enjoy exploring the forests and getting out in nature, I am pretty terrible with directions. After a while, I heard a distant whooshing sound that got louder and slower as it got closer.

I looked to the left and saw a train approaching. The doors swung open and I put two dollars in the pay pit. I got in and sat down next to a man with black hair. It didn't take too long to realise that everyone on this train was corrupted or just evil, but they didn't say anything to me and they minded their own business. Most of them were reading books or papers, and a couple were looking out the windows.

I looked around and kept my hands on my lap, not having anything to do except wait for the train to get where we were going. A lot of them were pandorians, but there were a couple of coronians. One of them had a metal eye and metal limbs, while others looked normal. There was a man on the far end of the train, being slightly obscured by the wall and reading a paper. There was something familiar about him, but I couldn't tell what.

I looked up at the man next to me. I couldn't place what it was about him, but something felt vaguely familiar and off-putting. I for sure didn't know anyone with black hair and green eyes, but there was something about him which made me think I knew him from somewhere. After a while of silence, the man next to me started talking to me, just trying to make some conversation.

"So, I take it you're the only clean one on this train, huh?"

"Uh yea, I guess I am,"

"Don't worry, you're safe. We already have what we need, and so do the coronians."

"That's very relieving,"

"Anyways it would be pretty stupid to start a fight on a train," As he said that, he looked to a woman who was reading a book and seated nearby. She looked up with spite.

"Hey! I could have easily killed that guy. I was instructed not to kill him." She said.

"And yet you still let him get away," the man repeated. She snarled and got back to her book angrily. He looked back and asked why I was so dirty. "Hey kid, what the hell happened to you? You're all wet and dirty?"

"Well it's a long story,"

"Explain it to me in one sentence"

"Um ok, so I don't remember how but I ended up in some weird complex with a shadow monster that helped me and I was stuck down there for who knows how long, and I was able to escape just yesterday and then I came across this place."

"Woah, that sounds pretty rough."

"Well it was, and I grew pretty close to that shadow being, but then it disappeared when I left the place," After a while, the train fell to silence again. Noticing the silence, one of the coronians spoke up and started asking everyone where they came from. When it got to me, I said that I didn't really know, and went into more detail about the complex I was stuck in with the shadow being.

A lot of the people on the train were from Rosedell, but almost everyone else was from Stonemill. I asked if anyone knew where were going, and the man next to me said our destination was Seamark, Ironhall. He followed up by asking if there was anywhere in particular that I was headed to, and I explained that I wanted to go wherever. I wanted to explore, and maybe hide from the general public because I was almost like a dead man to them.

When I brought this up, he looked confused and the souped-up coronian looked up at me and asked why I was in hiding, stating it was just out of curiosity. I explained that I was lost for so long, that the general public probably thought I was dead, and as I thought harder and harder, I realised that all of my friends and my family probably thought I was dead too. I started to wonder what they thought of me, how they reacted when I was gone.

Noticing that there were a lot of people from Stonemill on this train, there was a good chance at least one person would have known about the case about me going missing. When I spoke up about it, a lot of them mentioned how there were a lot of missing cases in Stonemill since September of 2058, and that number has only increased as time went on, and when someone was about to say the date, I told them I didn't want to know.

I explained how I wanted to try and exist devoid of time, just as I did in the complex, in a blissful state of being. They respected me for wanting to live without knowing what day it was, and a couple said they wanted to try it too. It was a pretty fun coincidence, but I still wanted to see if anyone knew about my disappearance, so I decided to tell them my name and ask if any of them knew anything about it.

Quite a bit of them said it was familiar, the woman who apparently lost a train fight spoke up, referring to it a rather controversial case. I asked her why and if she could go into a bit more detail, and she agreed. Apparently they first thought that I was kidnapped or something, and then two weeks later they closed the investigation, then they changed their statement to blame it on wormholes just a couple of hours later.

That one decision that to them had the most merit singlehandedly tore up the police force. It caused a lot of people, especially the mafia to think it was a cover-up, and with such a giant group of people having that opinion, it spread like wildfire over November and December, coming to a head in January when things really got bad. There was a massacre in the streets, and a lot of people killed were innocent. Truly was a dark day that I had missed and that I blamed myself for.

I was pretty shocked, and I felt so bad that the fact that I decided to do whatever I did that I couldn't remember eventually spiralled into a massacre that killed 49 people. I expressed this and she said something rather intriguing. "Don't worry about it, something like that was going to happen sooner or later, and you pretty much helped the mafia do what they wanted to do, because it won't be too long now until the entire police force gets torn down, they're just waiting for the right time."

That made me feel better, but I still felt bad that I had played a part in causing such an event, but I managed to convince myself it wasn't at all my fault. I wasn't sure if it was anyone's fault even. One could blame it on the police force, but I won't be pointing fingers without knowing all the facts, I just don't work like that. That way of thinking has historically been pretty bad, and it's led to many bad things in the past.

I asked if there was anything else about the case, and they said that it was such a weird and interesting case, and there are people who still offer their own opinions as to what happened. Everyone on the train could already piece together what happened, but she asked again for the one part I didn't say anything about, which was how I got down there in the first place. I told her that my memory went to shit ever since I escaped, and that I really wish I remembered how I got down there.

Apparently it was common knowledge that I left the library and then vanished into thin air. I started grasping from fragments of memory to try and pinpoint what happened, and I was able to make out that I went back in right after I left, and then I was at a train stop, and then I went down into the complex from there. I mentioned how it looked pretty similar to the one I got on at, but it was smaller and there weren't any screens or controls or anything like that.

I mentioned how I remember standing there and watched a train go by, although said train didn't ever stop for me, it just sped by at a slower pace, slowing down to make the turn that was up the tunnel presumably. A lot of them looked confused as to why there would be a stop without controls, because how else are you going to call a train to come and pick you up? None of them knew of that part of the track, and none of them had an explanation as to why it was even there.

I thought it was really strange that not even the people who use these trains and tunnels somewhat regularly wouldn't know about one random part of it, and that one random part seemingly the only of its kind. There had to be some kind of explanation to it, and I offered up the idea that maybe it used to have controls, but that they were removed for whatever reason at some point in time. It was the only explanation that made sense, and it was probably to protect the complex that was connected to the stop.

This whole place, this whole giant infinite area spanning who knows how long sprawling beneath our feet probably, this whole rail network that seems to only be used by the corrupted or those affiliated with the government and their corrupt affiliates. Every aspect of it seemed wrong, and I got the same feeling that I wasn't supposed to be here as I did when I first stepped into the lower part of the library so long ago.

It felt as if time stood still as the train went on, because it had fallen completely silent. Nobody was speaking to anyone on the train, and the whole place felt still. I looked around the train at all the faces and realised I had seen a number of them before, just around town in the general public. It was weird to know there were this many corrupted people living with me and I had no idea about it. It really makes you think. You never know who or what could be lurking in the shadows.

Eventually, the silence got to me and I started to fall asleep. It felt nice to have slept after walking through the forest for half the day. When I woke up, we weren't too far from Seamark, and the man beside was reading his bag. He said bye to his friends and I got up as well. I didn't really have anywhere else to go, and I felt like I belonged in Seamark, like someone was calling me.

Across the Sea and Under the Sky, the train rushed along the tracks that were laid deep under the ocean floor. Truly a marvel of engineering this place was. It made me wonder why they needed to build up such a long track in secret, only to be used by a minority of the population. Was it easier than using public transit? I mean I'd rather be on the train full of evil people than the regular subway.

We got off of the train and I followed him out into the station and up a long set of stairs. When we left the stairwell, we entered into a strange abandoned building. The air smelt rotten yet the building was pristine. The grey skies of the early morning shone through large glass panels at the front of the building. The place looked liminal, as if I were walking through a dream, but not a pleasant one.

As we walked out into the street, I was surprised to see that there was nobody else around. I had never really been to Seamark, and I would think there were more people around. The streets felt empty and the wind was cool, yet it was a rather humid day. Judging by the weather, it could have been April or May, with the ground being wet and the air being pretty warm. I decided to ask the man why the streets were so empty, and I was surprised he responded.

"Hey, why is it so empty here? Like there's nobody around?"

"There are a lot of abandoned parts of the city here in Seamark, and this is one of them."

"Oh ok, Where exactly are we headed?"

"We're going to a place called StarWorld. I've been told to go there by someone who I know to be corrupted. That guy always felt weird to me and he likes to copy my look. The man died his hair black recently, and it kinda gives me the creeps,"

"Sounds like an odd dude,"

"He is, and he's got a pretty long list of crimes he's gotten away with I've heard"

"So you got dirt on him?"

"I guess you could say that,"

"Just pull that up if he gets too out-of-hand,"

"You're smarter than you look, huh?"

"I guess,"

As we walked down the hollow streets, the building came into view. The bright purple exterior walls shone brilliantly over the empty parking lot. There wasn't a single car around, and as we walked closer I began to pick up a strange dread from the building. As we walked up to the front of the building, I hesitated for a moment. I didn't know what it was, but something about this place felt horrible, but I decided to go in anyways.

The man told me that they knew we were coming, but I still held a sense of dread, as if you were going into a place where you don't belong. The halls were dark, and there seemed to be a darker stain on the middle of the floor in the main hall area which didn't help my nerves at all. I stuck by the man's side, and we walked into the meeting room in the centre of the building.

There were five coronians in the room and a woman who looked familiar. They greeted the man and referred to him as Ethan and then they asked who I was. I mentioned how we met on the train, and when I said that I wasn't corrupted, I could almost feel their view of me shifting. I sort of sat there while they talked business, and the one said to another something that piqued my interest.

"Should we tell the kid about what happened?"

"It probably won't really matter,"

"Who's he gonna tell anyways? Go ahead Juliette, brag if you want."

They started to tell me a story. An awful story. I couldn't even believe what I was hearing was real at all, there was no way, right? Despite my doubts, they all confirmed the same thing and even offered to show me. I wanted to decline, but a morbid curiosity got the better of me. I felt my heart jump as the woman led me out of the room and through the building and into the basement.

The whole place looked like a maze and she led me to the center, where there was some sort of control room. She did some things on the computer and then she led me to the opposite side we came from. She had an odd grin on her face as she led me down deeper into the building. I had a bad feeling about her and it only got worse as we got deeper into the building.

She led me to this wall separating the second basement, and as we walked through, I was hit by the smell of death. There were rows and rows of rooms, all covered in dried blood. It was real. They weren't lying, why would I think that? At the end of the hallway, there was a hole in the ground. I didn't want to go inside it, but I peered down. I could make out newspapers on the ground.

I had to squint to make out the words, but when I could, I knew that I had to do something. I turned around and the woman was still standing at the end of the hallway, but she didn't look too happy.

"Don't you try to be too gallant, kid. Someone's already tried that,"

"You're not getting away with this!"

"Oh really?" In an instant, she drew a knife and started running at me. I looked ahead and ran to the end of the hallway. I could make out some stairs and I didn't even have time to think that they might be locked. The doors were heavy and hard to open, but I managed to open it and slam it shut behind me just as she followed me up the stairs. By some stroke of luck, there was a manual lock on the exterior side of the building, which allowed me to lock the door.

I rested my body against the door and sighed in relief. I had to take a moment to catch my breath. I felt alive, and even though I had almost died, it felt so exhilarating. I nearly lost my life, but I was smiling? I was confused but I totally forgot my situation. Her knife went right through the door, emerging mere centimeters from my face.

As it slid back behind the door, I jumped back. In an instant I remembered how much danger I was in. I decided to get the hell away from there and I started running down the street. As my sprint turned to a walk, I began to think about what I saw. I needed to go back. I wasn't going to let them get away with this. I couldn't.

I already started to plan it out, and I would just need a place to stay for about two months, which would probably be enough time for them to forget about me. I wasn't too sure what I was going to do, but I knew I was going to put up a fight. The only hard part of my plan was looking for a place to stay, and that only got harder as it started to rain.

I was walking all day, my only protection from the rain being a random shirt I had in my pocket dimension. The sun in the sky was starting to fade, and the light grey of the sky was the only light above the now foggy streets of the city. Everything felt more empty as the rain came down. There wasn't a single car in sight, and for a long while, on my side of the road there wasn't a single building, until I saw one come into sight in the distance.

The building was strange and foreboding, just the kind of thing I was looking for. I held my shirt underneath my arm and ran as fast as I could towards it so I could finally get out of the rain. The building was roughly shaped like a giant square with four short hallways jutting out from the middle of the four sides. From where I was on the street, I could make out a domed roof.

I walked up to the large red doors, similar to the ones in the train station and went inside. The hallway had a long glass dome over it, stretching over about half of the hallway, leaving the rest in darkness. I walked down the hallway and when I got to the dark part, I got filled with a familiar sense of dread. Even though I was shaking a little bit, I walked to the end of the hallway and opened the door.

Inside the large room was not exactly what I was expecting; This place was a food court. Old fronts of fast food restaurants lined the interior of the room, however the signs were old and worn. Everything in this place looked worn, and the concrete that made up the walls and the braces of the dome were green, almost like the color of weathered copper. There were little plants that grew through small cracks in the discolored and cracked tile floor.

There was grime on the counter tops of the storefronts and the tables were covered in dust that had fallen down from the ceiling. Although this place looked like a dump, something about it felt endearing. It was like this place held a comfort to me, almost as if I had been here long ago. Even though it might take some work, I thought I could possibly be able to restore it with the right equipment.

Before I got to that though, or before anything for that matter, I was pretty hungry so I decided to eat. I still had a couple of those meal packs from the underground infinity maze, so I brought one out and started to eat it. The burger and fries inside were still warm somehow. I took time to enjoy my meal and I used that time to take in the scenery and stillness of this place.

I felt solace here. I felt a great peace in this area, but I also had a sense of longing. Longing for something more, longing for someone, but I tried to not let the want to not be alone get to my head, until it did. I was nearly done my burger when I fully realized just how alone I was. It was like a switch was randomly flipped and I felt that familiar sense of dread and lingering fear well up in my head.

It was like in an instant everything got darker and far quieter. This area felt so strange now, and it looked like I was going to have to find somewhere else if I wanted to sleep here. I couldn't go outside either, as I could still hear the pounding of the rain on the large glass skylight above my head. I finished my meal and scooped all the crumbs into the bag it came in and started walking to the trashcan.

When I got about halfway there I began to think of something. What if I wasn't alone? I was sure I was, as this place didn't feel anything unlike lonely, but I couldn't shake the thought. I tried to forget about it, but no matter how hard it tried, it was the only thing I could think about. Even though I knew I was alone, something in my head kept telling me to turn around, but I didn't want to.

I kept my pace and headed to the trashcan to throw out the bag, and when I turned around I saw something at the other end of the room. It was a shadow, and I immediately thought that maybe it could be ..., but it was a different shadow. This one was unfamiliar and seemed much more reserved. It stood still at the opposite end of the room, staring down at the ground.

I slowly started walking towards it, trying to comfort it like the other shadow comforted me. With every step I felt a dread welling up as I began to inch closer. I felt like something sudden was going to happen, but nothing did. I walked up to it, keeping my stature a bit lower than usual as if I was bracing for it to jump at me, but when I approached it, it stayed still. With nothing else to do, I tried to talk to it.

"Hello, I'm Josh,"

"..."

"Are you alright?"

"..."

"I'm a bit lost too,"

"..."

"Look, it's ok if you don't want to speak to me, I'll just leave then if you want to be alone," I started walking away, looking for another door that could possibly take me somewhere else in the building, but then it spoke.

"please don't,"

"I can stay if you want,"

"please."

I asked it about what happened, and it told me the same thing they did at StarWorld. I still couldn't believe that it was all true. I didn't want it to be real, but it was. I wanted to stay here though. The shadow reminded me of myself, and they were just like I was when I found myself lost in the complex. I didn't want to abandon them and we stayed together quite a lot.

We talked a lot that night, and after some searching we found a place to sleep. It turned out there was a whole complex located beneath our feet, however we didn't realize it yet. I still remember that night, where I pulled out my air mattress and we both slept on it in a warm room, far from the light of the surface. It was like I was still in that complex, and for some reason I longed to be there.

I don't fully think it was a longing to be lost in the maze of infinite darkness, but I feel like it was the longing for my best friend, the one I lost. I thought about him as I slept, and I thought about how I didn't want to lose another, however I felt as if it was inevitable. Everything goes away in the end, and I knew that more than anyone else, yet I could never accept it, and even though I knew it, I wanted to change it. I wanted to change the future, and I wanted to change the story of StarWorld, however I was able to do that, and I spent a lot of time waiting, waiting for the right time, waiting to strike.

## Viridan Forest, Stonemill, IZ144/6/76 (K), Wednesday, November 34, 2058, Will Petoraka -New Home (Again)-

Will anyone ever miss you when you're gone? It's a question I've asked myself a lot, but one I've never found a comforting answer to. It's a question that's been pretty relatable to my life, having been taken multiple times by the relentless Red Kingdom trying to make use of my Soul and its power. Apparently I have a really strong Soul, although I haven't been able to use its true power, at least not yet.

The power of the Soul is truly amazing, and one who can harness said power well enough can access their true powers, which display the true force of their Soul and Void energies as they synchronise and come together to make something truly powerful. I've always thought I was synthetic, but now learning just how powerful my Soul is, I've started to doubt it.

At least as far as I know, a synthetic being such as my brother has a limit on how strong their Soul could be, and the fact that I had always been stronger than him lends credence to the idea that I was real, but if so then how did I get such a powerful Soul? I ask these questions to myself rather frequently, but like always I can never get an answer. I've always wanted to be with him again, but I know that might never happen.

It's so unfair how suddenly I was ripped from his presence. As well as the anger of being pulled away from him, I had a feeling he doesn't talk about me. Wether that be for a good reason or not, I trust him enough to say that it's not out of spite. But perhaps it's better that he doesn't talk about me. Sometimes I like this reality better than the one I came from, because everything happens so fast here.

In this reality, we know the world is ending, and everything is happening so fast as the Red Kingdom and the corrupted coronians do whatever they're trying to do, and the police force try to stop the Mafia from completely tearing down their government. When I was in my home reality of M, everything happened much more slowly. Sometimes, I long for the simplicity of life there, but I've always saught danger and challenge.

It wasn't my choice to be sent here to Reality K, it just happened one day. I was running through the Sarnian Woods late one night. I heard a car up ahead and saw headlights, so I went in the direction the noise came from. I passed over a road, and I went back into the woods. I could make out a faint light up ahead, and when I went up to them, I realised it was a wormhole. I didn't go in, but another one opened up right underneath me and sent me through.

Ever since that day, I've enjoyed walking through the forests late at night. Although it can be terrifying at times, there's always been something so comforting about the dark and mysterious for me. Something about it was always so intriuging to me, and I couldn't help myself from venturing further and further down the path every night. This night was no different than any other, or at least I thought so at first.

The cold air blew through the trees, howling as the wind spiralled and twisted through the tall trees that grew in the forest beside me. It wasn't snowing anymore, but the ground was covered in thick snow. Although the terrain was difficult to traverse, it didn't deter me from taking a walk through the frigid woods. I didn't care that I was cold, in fact the cold only comforted me.

It grew into that weird feeling of dark nostalgia for the time I was running for my life through the forest, being chased by something. I can still remember that day pretty clearly. It was the night I fell into this reality and I landed in the same woods, however when I did, I knew something was different. I was so confused when I landed into a forest full of snow, and feeling the chill throughout my entire body as I shivered in my short clothes.

I got up and shook myself off. It was about 4 degrees above freezing, but I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. I realised I needed to get out of here, so I started walking back to the road I had crossed earlier. When I walked through the woods, it was almost completely silent. The only sound was the creaking of dead trees and the crunch of the snow packing itself beneath my feet as I walked through the woods.

It was so cold, but I was determined to escape. I finally got back to the main road. I knew the way out, but I didn't know just how long the road actually was. All I could do was walk on the dull ice and down the forest road, heading south down to the nearest main road. From there, I knew I could make it to civilization pretty easily. It didn't take me too long to figure out I was in a different reality, although then I didn't know which one.

I had heard from others in reality M that there was another reality, and I knew that this was it. At that time I didn't know what the reality was called, but it didn't take too long to figure out. Long before that though, I was still stuck in the forest. It was so quiet, so cold. My footsteps were like mere raindrops in the puddle of noise that was utter silence. The silence was so loud somehow, but then it wasn't.

In a sudden motion of invisible air, the silence gave way to music. I wasn't familiar with the song, but it sounded so strained and sad. I stopped dead in my tracks and listened to the piano that echoed through the trees, the notes bending and reaching above the trees and flying high into the sky in an ethereal tone. Then the vocals came in, and I felt tears stream down my face in the cold.

It sounded like a chorus of angels singing high above the canopy and singing in the sky, their words being lost between reverberations through the trees in the trees. It was the most beautiful song I had ever heard in my life, and it almost didn't sound natural. It almost didn't sound real, and surely it wasn't, right? It took me a moment of standing in shock to snap out of my trance and slap myself.

It was all entirely real. After I snapped back to realisation, my astonishment turned into horror. I looked over my shoulder and saw something standing far in the darkness. All I could see were its white eyes at first, but then I shone light on it and its giant body came entirely into view. It was a giant shadow that towered far above me. It must have been at least 8 feet tall, and it walked with heavy steps towards me.

I dropped my flashlight and took off running through the woods down the road. I ran as fast as I could, and I looked back every couple of seconds. Although after a short time I couldn't see it anymore, I kept running and running through the trees against the cold packed snow on the forest road. The music kept on going still as I ran, growing quieter and quieter like the orchestra was growing distant.

After almost five minutes from when it started, the song ended and I stopped to take a breath. I looked back into the pitch black road behind me and saw nothing. It was empty and all I could make out were the outlines of the trees against the yellowish-purple night sky that was brighter than most days. Everything felt so still and calm as I caught my breath and took a drink, and then I continued down the path.

That was all I remembered from that night, and even though it was one of the most horrifying and unexplainable experiences of my life, something captivated me about it so deeply. What even was that thing? I never got a good look at it, but all I knew was that its eyes were tiny white dots that emitted no light. In fact the creature seemed to suck all of the light from the area, as the flashlight didn't illuminate it that well.

It must have been pure shadow, and I'm sure it was hostile. I didn't want to think about it, yet I did at the same time. I still continued down the path north of Ampor Manor as the night grew cold and dark. It was midnight now and I still walked down the snowy and dark forest road. I checked the time and it was 12:07 AM. As I continued down the road after that moment, I began to get a sense of dread.

The sense came at first as a distant thought, almost like a ship on the edge of the horizon, but it began to grow. Although my heart beat grew faster and I felt sweat on my hands, I didn't stop. It was almost like I couldn't stop. I walked deeper and deeper down the road, further and further into the isolation. Down and Down into the black of the deep woods on a cold night.

There was no sound, not even wind anymore. Not even my footsteps made noise; the silence swallowed it all whole, and I began to fear the shadows would do the same. I pulled out a flashlight, different from the one I left behind in the woods in September which still lays lonely in the darkness, possibly long gone or possibly still in the same place I left it. I held out the flashlight out in front of me and illuminated the dark forest.

As I did, I saw animals scurry out of sight, fleeing from the light. It was only a group of deer and a couple of birds, and I ventured on. The light from the flashlight only illuminated about 12 feet in front of me, but it didn't matter. At least I had some visibility, and it's better to have something rather than nothing. The forest seemed less quiet, but I couldn't tell what about it was less quiet.

There was an ambient drone far in the distance that pierced the silence, although it was still very quiet. I walked through the forest, and I began to get a familliar feeling, almost like Deja Vu, but combined with dark nostalgia. Then from the far ambient drone, it stopped for a moment and gave way to something different. It was clearly a song, but was stretched out and ambient.

The music droned in low piano notes that surged like waves. After around two and a half minutes, it gave way into a coherent set of notes, however they were close together and drenched in reverb. After the coherent part, a high note played and it swooped down like a bird into a low tone. The song slowly got lower and quieter until it ended abruptly, and after five seconds of silence, it repeated.

I walked through the woods listening to this strange music the whole time, and I realised it might be getting closer. I turned around briefly and shone the flashlight behind me, but all I could see was the path behind me. I decided to venture deeper into the woods, the song slowly getting louder with every second step down the road, the crunching of the snow beneath my feet barely being as loud as the music.

I went on and on, slowly walking through the woods as the music slowly crept above a whisper. The coherent set of notes in the middle of the song becoming louder every time I heard them bend through the empty air. I wasn't scared anymore, I was just curious. I walked deeper trying to decyhper what was happening here. I kept walking and it got louder and louder, so I walked faster.

I was practically running towards it until it was as loud as the chorus I heard in the Sarnian Woods back in September, and then I saw it. Standing in the middle of the road was the same shadow that I saw back in September. It stared down at the ground, almost as if it was asleep. It became clear that it was somehow emitting this music from its body, and I stood in front of it.

I felt scared, but I knew it wouldn't do anything. I stood there for a minute, waiting to see if it would so anything. I stepped closer and its head moved. It looked down at me as I shone the flashlight at its feet. I stared up into its tiny white eyes, and I swore I could see my reflection in circles around the white dots. It didn't speak, but I heard what it said. It wanted to show me something.

The shadow opened up a wormhole in front of the both of us and stood in front of us. It was small at first, but it grew in size to a normal shape. I was confused, but the music kept emitting from it, and I heard its voice telling me to go in. I didn't know how, but I could understand it. I tried to communicate back with my mind, but I knew I wouldn't be able to, so I used my words.

I told it I wanted to write a note and leave it here for someone to find if I didn't come back. I pulled out my notebook and a pencil and began to write. "*To whoever finds this note and is looking for Willow, I'm fine. I'm going through a wormhole that might bring me back home. Please do not come looking for me because I'll be too far gone at that point. Sincerely, Will."*

I tied it to a stick with a rubber band and stuck it in the snow in the middle of the path. I put away my pencil and notebook and walked with it into the wormhole. I had gone through many before, but I hadn't seen any like this before, well all except one. That one being the one that sent be to Reality K in September, and I hoped that it would send be back home. I braced for landing, and we both fell onto the same path the wormhole had taken us.

The music still emitted from the shadow, and I heard a voice telling me that this was my new home, and that there was no going back. I asked it why, and it told me in its weird way of speech that the universe wanted me to end up here, so it sent this shadow to come to me and bring me here personally. I thanked it and walked away. I waved goodbye to it, and I heard its voice in my head wishing me luck.

As I walked away, it stopped me for a second and mentioned how I was lucky. I asked it how, and it said that was waiting for someone else, but it realised it made a mistake and that they weren't the correct person, but I wasn't the right person either. It was completely by chance that I got offered an opportunity to be part of what it called the best possible ending, but when I asked what it meant, it disappeared.

The music stopped and the forest fell silent again. Everything was quiet, and it wasn't nearly as cold. I scanned my surroundings and noticed there was no snow on the ground. The air was warm but not hot, perfectly in the middle actually. Was I home? There was only one way to find out. I didn't know just how deep into the woods I was, but I knew I was really far in, and it was almost 2 AM at the time I fell through.

I only had one option and that was to walk all the way back the way I had come. I was a long ways out, having left the manor at 29:30, meaning I had spent about seven hours going straight north, but all I could do was prepare myself for a long journey and head due south back to the manor so I could figure out if I was really home, because I had a feeling this was somehow different.

I assumed it was because I had never been to the mansion in Reality M, only having been there in Reality K, so certainly it was different, but this wasn't too far off. It was like it was just summer in Reality K, which would be about as hot as winter in Reality M would be, at least as far as I know. I don't know much of the differences between the realities, only gaining knoweldge from what the others said.

I never thought I would need to know the differences between the realities, but now I wished I had known. Hours passed by as my legs grew tired of walking down the road in the same direction for hours and hours. It was 8 o'clock and the sun was coming up, but I still couldn't make out the mansion over the trees. I knew I had to be somewhat close, because it had been about 6 hours after I got here.

As the sun started to come up, the forest got a lot warmer. I had to take off my sweater and I changed my pants into shorts, although it was a bit too cold for shorts. The trees overhead cast long shadows over the old path. I could make out all the tiny plants growing in between the bricks, something I had never noticed during the dark nights when the entire path was cloaked in snow and shadow.

The wind began to pick up shortly afterwards, and the same high tones of the song that the shadow were imitated by the howling wind that rushed through the dead plants and trees without leaves. There was no shade from the sun here, the entire canopy being made up of sprawling branches off of the tall trees that jut out from the ground and kiss the clouds high above my head.

Most of the trees didn't have leaves, but a lot of them were old and dead, rotting in the positions they stood at the height of their life. Birds sung in the distance a sombre song just barely audible over the crying wind. This place felt off. I felt like I wasn't supposed to be here, yet I felt like I wanted to be here. Even if this wasn't home, I had a hope that this was where I belong, in this place.

As I got closer to the mansion, I caught a whiff of sorrow hanging in the air. A feeling of despair hung heavy, yet hope still persisted. I still kept my pace even though I was excited to see where the path would take me. I didn't to run right into a mansion full of other people who might not know me, and even if some did, would they all trust me? I started to think that maybe it's true that I'm not the most trustworthy Soul.

As I walked through, I finally could see the door up ahead in the distance. I didn't want to just run in, so I slowly walked towards the building. From where I was, I couldn't make out anyone in the kitchen area. There looked to be a lot of natural light in the building, but I thought it was just some kind of trick of reflection. When I got closer and closer to the door, I began to see that something was clearly wrong here.

When I got to the door and opened it, the ceiling was missing, and looking through the house, everything above the first floor was completely destroyed, and rubble lined the walls, clearly being swept to the walls but no attempt was made to repair the damage. It looked like the damage was pretty recent, and there looked like burn marks on the planks that stood high above my head.

The back wall was the tallest part, and the walls seemed to decrease in size from the back going forwards. Twisted metal and wooden beams stuck out into the sky and wooden planks hung at odd angles, all being pulled to the ground by the force of gravity, but they were still hanging on to the frames that held them to the walls. The whole place felt very still, and the floorboards creaked with every step.

It felt very, very wrong to be here, and the mystery of the destroyed building only added to the element of fear that hung in the air. I took another step into the building, and I felt the floor move under my feet. The entire building was clearly pretty damaged by whatever happened, and the foundation seemed pretty unstable. I slowly and cautiously walked through the building, but then I heard a distant noise.

I walked forwards to the source of the noise, taking slow steps through the broken mansion. I kept walking, but then I heard the noise again. It sounded like a step, and I stopped in my tracks. I looked out towards the hallway in front of me and I started to walk down it. I looked around after the first couple of steps, and although the large room was empty, it didn't feel as such. I had a strong feeling that I was being watched.

I walked down the hallway slowly and made my way to the front hall. The front wall was short and destroyed, the damage cutting almost as low as the front door was tall. From where I stood just outside the foyer, I could see the stairs leading to nowhere, the landings gone and the second level completely missing. As I stood there in the hall, the feeling that I was being watched grew and grew, until I couldn't ignore it.

Before I could even look over my shoulder, I got tackled to the ground. "WHO ARE YOU AND WHO SENT YOU" The voice shouted. "Get off me I'm on your side, I went through a wormhole and I found this place!" The man got off of me and helped me up off the ground and apologised. There were a couple of others around me, all staring down at me, looking just as confused as I was.

Some of them looked somewhat familiar, but a lot of them looked unfamiliar. The guy who tackled me asked me where I came from, and I explained how I was just in Reality K. They looked pretty shocked and interested, and one said to another "I didn't even know wormholes could lead here," they all seemed pretty confused and shocked and they asked for proof. I showed them a picture I had of our group that was taken shortly before Josh went missing.

In the photograph, we were all standing in front of the school, and it took me a second to realise Juliette was in the background. The guy who tackled me inspected the picture, and for a second his expression was of disbelief, but then it turned to shock. He showed it to the others around, them all sharing the same feeling. I asked what was going on, and he said I wouldn't know seeing as I just got here.

I asked for an explanation, and he gave me one. He pointed to Rico and said that he looked very similar to someone they knew and feared. I knew it couldn't possibly be the same person, and in a quick thought I asked if maybe it could be a reality clone, and then I asked if I was back in M. He looked at the others who all exchanged looks, and then back to him who looked back to me.

"Well, no, you're not in M. You're in T." he said.

"What? There are THREE realities?"

"Yep, but for some reason in M and K nobody short of government officials knows about it."

"Really, well then. So what's the main difference here?"

"It's sort of like a middle ground between K and M, and that's really all I'll say right now."

"I'm sorry if I'm asking too many questions right now, but what happened to the mansion?" he looked around to the others and took a deep breath.

"Look, I can understand you're confused, and it's OK that you're asking questions, but the thing is we don't really like to talk about it,"

"Oh I see, it's alright then,"

"I'll tell you soon, I don't want to flood you with information right now."

"That's fine I guess. Anyways, I don't think I've gotten your name, have I?"

"It's Havoc, and thanks for asking by the way. What's yours?"

"I'm Willow, but you can call me Will."

"Will, huh? I used to know a Will, but that was ages ago," Most of the others that were gathered around went back to whatever they were doing before, but a couple stuck back and joined in on our conversation. For some reason, everyone here seemed more serious and grim than those in M and K. I had a hunch it had to do with their strange fear of Rico and whatever happened to this mansion.

They sat in a circle with us, and we just talked for a while. There were only a couple of them, and I learned their names pretty quickly. There was Chester, who was an engineer and technician, Shoshi who was really good with a scythe-type weapon, Qurtz who was a protector of his fort, Atom who was a GCW veteran and musician, and James who was one of the guards for the mansion.

James said when he saw me coming, he didn't want shoot because he could tell I looked scared and very lost. I explained what happened to me and they all seemed pretty surprised. They didn't have anything to say, until Qurtz said he heard the same thing one time. He was always keeping guard of this fort he was stationed at, however he was never allowed inside for some reason.

"I remember hearing something similar to what you're describing. I was at my post one night and because it's right in the middle of a clearing, I have to watch the tree line on all sides and patrol with a rifle and a sword. It was really quiet that night, I couldn't even hear the wind or the birds, but I knew something was off. There was a heavy feeling that something was seriously off, and I brought it up to the other guard on duty, and she noticed it too.

We stood together and walked the perimeter of the building, trying to figure out what was going on, when Koko spotted something in the tree line. It looked like a man, but there was something really off about him. He clearly wasn't corrupted, but he seemed really, really *off.* His shadow cast far into the trees from the bright lights of the fortress, illuminating his figure standing tall and long in the tall trees.

At that point, we didn't know what we were dealing with, and she initially thought she was going crazy but then I saw it too. We both stared down at the figure and waited for it to move, but it stayed stationary. We both shouted at it to get away because this was private property, both of us shouting in unison to produce a louder sound. It looked up at us, the man's beady eyes gleaming in the bright lights from the walls of the fortress.

The man started laughing and then slowly started walking towards the building, his shadow slowly shrinking with every step. He was quite short and looked to be around your age Will. He said it was his third outing, and before we knew what that meant he ran straight towards the fort and attacked us. We almost died that day but we managed to just barely escape with our lives, using a panic wormhole switch that was located inside the base.

It was him. It was that boy you called Rico, or whatever version of him exists in this reality. They look pretty similar to me, except ours looks older and more menacing. I don't even want to think about what could have happened that day. Koko and I were lucky to have just barely escaped. We tried to go after him, but every time we tried, everything went wrong... We lost a couple is what I'm trying to say."

"Jeez I'm sorry that happened to you. That must have been awful to be a part of."

"Well, I've gotten over it," He spoke with a forced smile.

The air in the room felt grim. They had all clearly been effected by this man-no this creature. From what I heard, he was not a person, or at least I didn't consider them to be. Now that I got to hear their stories about this man, I started to grow a bit weary of Rico. Was he really that bad in Reality K, or was it just here? I know that sometimes reality clones can be pretty different from each other, but I wasn't too sure on this one.

I didn't really know what to make of things here, with all of these stories about a person who I knew, or perhaps I thought I knew. Not just that, but I had to adjust to a new home and new people. I thought I had gotten pretty good at that with everything that happened in the past couple of months.

Although it took a while, over the next three days I got pretty well adjusted with the group, and I managed to meet everyone there. There were some people who I recognised, and some people who were completely knew to me. Initially, I wasn't too sure why this group felt so connected than the other two groups I'd been part of, but then I figured it out on the seventh day.

All of the people in this group had been traumatized by something or someone, and the fact that we could all share in our bad experiences seemed to bring us together. I've always been the type to look too deep into everything that happens, so it didn't take me too long to figure it out, but it also didn't take me too long to look for another reason. Greater meaning as a concept had always stuck with me.

I've always been that one religious guy in the group, and I've embraced that stereotype to a tee. Although there are many people, especially here in Stonemill who are Reymanan, where they do not believe in a God, I've always saw it differently. I didn't care if people thought I was crazy because of it, I always thought that perhaps if their hearts were just, than they might also be accepted.

But the whole concept of Greater Meaning isn't just a religious thing, and some of the people in our group were saying that it could be real. They say that the universe controls the paths of every person contained within it, and that's how wormholes work, and that the universe got lazy and cloned people or something. I found those ideals pretty interesting, but something always sat strangely within me.

Describing the universe itself as being the one judgement of every individual Soul and believing that is pretty similar to believing in a God like I do. I never brought it up, because I didn't want to come off as too preachy, but I've always held that thought in the back of my mind. Whether it's true or not, I doubt I'll ever fully know. Maybe it's just a secret that's better to be kept as such.

Anyways, I've lost track. That day was pretty strange. Not just containing my arrival to the conclusions about how I felt so much more connected with this group, but also in the form of a different arrival, but an arrival that was worse than I would have thought. It was a pretty normal day and there wasn't really anything notable to it. The weather was colder than what the normal was for the region, being much warmer than what I was used to for the second of December in Stonemill.

It was a fairly normal evening, a couple of us were chilling out on the top level of the basement, playing cards with each other when a bell started to ring. A couple of them ran over to the computer to see what was coming, and they looked pretty shocked when they looked at the camera feed. I couldn't see what was on the computer because there were six others trying to get a look at it, so I decided to go upstairs and see it firsthand.

"What the fuck happened to you?"

. . .

The past moments in time were pretty fucking stressful. He bad been trapped between realities for a time, and that can take a pretty big toll on anyone, but specifically he had it pretty rough. He didn't want to go too far into detail about the things that he saw and the things that happened to him, but what he did say painted a good picture of why he was happy to get out of there.

With the light of the wormhole filling up everything in his view, he finally felt a release, a calmness and a safety he hadn't felt for a very long time. The spinning and swirling light of the tunnel was all he could see, and then the end of the tunnel could be seen, and he fell pretty hard onto the ground. Where was he? He could barely make out the tops of trees as his sight came back.

The sky was painted midnight, and he was in the middle of the woods, a forest path that wasn't familiar at all to him. At first, there was no sound and the woods were silent. Not even the comforting sound of wind through the trees. No, there was not even a slight breeze to cool him off. Everything was still for a while as he figured out what to do now, but then he could hear something in the distance.

It sounded like chopping maybe? As if someone was senselessly beating a tree with an axe. Whoever or whatever it was, it sounded pretty angry. He hoped that whatever it was, it might show mercy on him as he slowly walked past. With his body lower to the ground, he tried to be as quiet as possible so he wouldn't be noticed. As he walked down the path, he began to make out what it was making all of the noise.

Not too far from where he stood and just a short ways down the path, there was a coronian. They were screaming and crying, and they seemed pretty distraught about something. Indeed they did have an axe, and they were taking out their anger on the tall trees that lined the forest path. Luckily for him, they seemed pretty occupied with what they were doing, so he might be able to slip past.

As he got closer to the enraged coronian, without warning it turned towards him. In that moment, he knew he was in danger. The beast turned around in an instant, and it held its axe. What was going on in its head that could make it so horribly distraught? It held its giant axe as tears streamed from its eyes. They both stood still for what felt like hours, and then he made the first move.

He ran past the coronian, hoping to get away, but the thing grabbed him and threw him onto the ground. It kicked him across the ground, but he still got up. He didn't have anything to fight it off with, so his only hope was to somehow overpower it, but that was never going to work. It grabbed his arm and threw him down the path, but he managed to stay at his feet. He stared it down as it pounced on him.

The coronian had him pinned on the ground under its body weight. It pulled its axe from the position on its back, and positioned it over his face. He put both of his bands under the blade to try and stop it, but tried as he did, it wasn't enough. In a sudden movement, he went blind. The axe went through both of his eyes, and cut deep into the hands that tried to hold the axe from his face.

It wasn't satisfied though, and it picked him up off the ground. It pulled him by his bull-like horns and drove the axe right through his chest. The beast kicked him to the ground. He was lucky to even be alive. A moment passed, and the coronian seemed to have a change of heart. It stepped backwards, afraid of the deed it had done, and it started shouting. It started crying.

"what have I done? What the fuck have I done? I-I'm sorry, I- oh shit OH FU-"

He couldn't see it, but there was someone else there. Someone who roamed the lands out for blood.

"Oh god not now, you picked the worst fucking time,"

"everybody says that. They're just not ready to accept anything, huh?"

"..."

"oh nice job on that kid, he's dead isn't he?"

"N-no he isn't. Don't say that,"

"you killed him didn't you?"

'No I didn't,"

"but you did. You killed him out of hate, didn't you?"

"NO I DIDN'T,"

"you're just as bad as I am. Admit it, coward,"

"STOP SAYING THAT IT WAS AN ACCIDENT, IT WA-"

He got up off the ground. His shirt was soaked through at this point by brownish blood. His face was covered in blood and tears. He couldn't see, but he stared at the man and the coronian, silently judging the both of them. He didn't know either of them, but he could feel the aura of the man. He could finally feel the wind, but it felt sharp on his face and hands. He could almost feel the air moving through him.

"holy shit,"

"I-I'm so sorry, I, I can't apologise can I? What the fuck is wrong with me?"

"heh, I'm going to have fun with this one,"

The coronian took a stand. It knew it would never be able to kill the man in front of him, but he might be able to help the boy he almost killed. It was his own rage that caused him to nearly kill the boy, so it was the least he could do. It ran full-speed towards him and caught him, picking him up by his abdomen and holding him away from its body so he wouldn't brush his woulds on its body.

Its great wings appeared from its back, and it flew off into the night sky, leaving the man on the ground. Although it laughed for a moment, it stopped for a moment when a knife sailed through the air, nearly killing the both of them. Sailing through the night sky, it swooped down and placed him back on the path, not too far from what remained of a mansion that appeared to have been demolished.

"I'm sorry, but this is the farthest I can go. I'm really sorry, but I know that won't fix anything. I am going to make you new eyes, but I know that will never take away the pain I caused you. Please, go on and live a good life, and don't die."

Although he couldn't see it, he could feel a blast of wind and hear the great wings flapping. He turned around and started walking down the path. He know he was going the right way when he felt the cool stones of the path turn into wooden floorboards. As he stepped into what was once a kitchen, he felt safer. He didn't think it would be the end of the road for him just yet, but he wanted to pause for a moment. At first, he thought he was alone, but then he heard someone.

From behind, he could hear the footsteps of someone else. For a moment, he thought it would be someone of help, but he could recognise the sound of the footsteps. The man was back and he thought he could sneak up on him, but since he was blind his other senses were heightened, or so people say. Maybe the man didn't know how to walk quietly, but he knew the man was here.

The man was out for blood, and it seemed like he wasn't satisfied. He turned around to face the man, and even though he couldn't see the man he was staring down, he hoped it would make him go away. He stood still and he had hoped that they would just leave, but they didn't. They walked closer to him and stopped not too far from his face. He could feel their breath on his face.

"why are you doing this?" He said.

"I just enjoy it."

"Why me? Have I not suffered enough?"

"If not you, then who else?"

"..."

"..."

"If that's how you work, then why not take me? It's my life over another, and there isn't much of a point anyways, huh?"

"wow. Well that's a first. I don't think I've seen anyone else say that. You'd throw your own life away just to save someone else? How do you know that someone else isn't as bad as I am?"

"How do I know they're not the greatest person ever? How do I know they're not going to change the world? How do I know they're not going be the one to put you in your grave? How do you know what they could do if you don't give them the change, huh?"

"You got a lot of moxie, kid. Most people don't get this far, in fact I don't think anyone I've fought y-"

"Killed in cold blood. Don't try to short-sell it. I don't know who you are, but I know the type you are."

"You really aren't scared of me?"

"I can't see you anyways, so what does it matter?"

"Most people can feel it when I'm near,"

"Oh I can feel you, but I'm not scared. I've seen enough crazy shit in my life already, I think I'm just about ready for death to take me."

"You like living on the edge I see,"

The man clearly had respect for him, but he hated to be challenged. He was out for blood, and it was looking like he was going to get it. With everything the man said, he never showed fear, even though on the inside he was screaming. He knew that he didn't have any other option than to try to earn his respect so that he may be spared, but he was starting to think it might not work.

"I just go wherever I get taken. I didn't choose to get an axe to the face, yet here we are."

"Kids these days don't have any direction,"

"You don't look too much older than me, did you get an axe to the face too?"

"No, and I'm 21 and you're like what, 12?"

"I'm 17 you bastard,"

"Getting a bit defensive I see, most of the time when people talk to me like that I kill them for the hell of it,"

"Yet you didn't do anything, Coward,"

"I AM NOT A COWARD YOU LITTLE-"

He had clearly pissed him off, and had gone a bit too far. He was going to pay the price for insulting the man's ego. Even though that creature is heartless, he's still a person with emotions and feelings, and it seems that he had been toying with them a bit too much. The man picked him up my his metal legs and ripped them right off of his body.

He laid there in the middle of the floor, resting both of his arms behind his chest to prop his body up. Although he couldn't see it, he was bleeding all over the floor. He had lost his legs before, but now he had lost them again, although they could be reattached this time. The man laid both of his legs on the ground in front of him, his rage still clouding his mind.

The man shouted out in anger again and he punched him in the face. All he did was laugh at the man, taunting him. He knew that he was going to die, but he didn't care. Everything that had happened to him while he was between realities was enough to cause countless mental scars, and his life before that wasn't too great either. Seventeen years of a good life filled with awful tragedies that seemed to follow him wherever he went.

In a final fit of rage, the man dropped his knife and grabbed him by the neck. Shouting and screaming at him the whole time, the man choked him. In the few breaths he had left, he laughed at him, and the final word before his body went limp came out, 'coward'. He saw through him. He looked behind the hate in his eyes and the rage in his mind to see him who he really was, a coward.

The man was a coward and they both knew it, but the man didn't want to admit it. The man dropped him onto the ground and kicked him one final time, before he walked away. Little did that man know that he had been tricked. The man walked away in a fit of anger, going through the house that he had destroyed himself, passing mere inches from where I was hiding. He went right out of the door and down the road, defeated.

Defeated sure is a good word for it, because he didn't accomplish what he sent out to do. He had tricked the man and played him like a fiddle. Without any other way out of this shitstorm of a sticky situation, he called him a coward and then intentionally went limp. He was playing dead and he managed to fool him. Him calling the man a coward rung true when he didn't make sure he was dead. Even though the man was much more powerful than him, he was able to outsmart him with the oldest trick in the book.

Although he was alive, he was just barely holding on. He couldn't gasp for air too loud because he wasn't sure how far the man was, so he had to slowly and quietly inhale as much as he could while staying as still as possible. He couldn't really move either, seeing as his legs were laying in the pool of blood that he was laying in.

If he didn't get help fast, he was going to be lying dead on the floor. He just had to wait. The wait he thought was imminent was a wait for his death. There wasn't much else he could do other than wait. For all he knew he was in a random building in the middle of the woods, judging by what the coronian said it wasn't likely he was close to civilisation. Although he had been expecting death for a while now, the wait was terrifying.

Even after everything he had accomplished, he was just going to die on the floor of a building in a forest, probably forgotten to history. Everything he had worked for, everyone he had met, all the stands he took, his bravery, his smarts, everything about him would be gone with the wind that blew through the hollow building, but that didn't happen. It nearly did, but luckily for him, I was there. We were all there. He made it out alive, too.

We were able to reattach his legs and managed to sew up his chest, hands, and his face. He had some bruises on his arms, body, and neck, but those were much less severe than everything else. Although he was pretty badly hurt, he was still alive. He was pretty grateful for being saved, contrary to what he said with his own mouth prior. I guess a near death experience really changes people, makes them really think, makes them more humble. That really stuck with me more than anything else, how in the face of everything, how he held on until the moment he almost lost his life. Something about him really kept.

...

It was only a couple of days after we took in Taurie. I had been walking through the forest path behind the mansion every night since I got here, I had even gone the night Taurie got attacked, however I came back a long while before he even came here through the wormhole. It was a night mostly like any other, well at least at the beginning. The night was bright for the first half an hour or so, but then everything suddenly went dark.

When the sky went black, I was filled with a sense of dread. It carried some familiarity, but it felt completely new. I wanted to turn back right then, but I felt like if I turned back then things would be worse. I wasn't sure why I felt like this, but it was a feeling that I could not deny. I felt like the only thing I could do was go forward. There wasn't anywhere else to go anyways.

Even though the night was warmer than most in December, even in this reality, I felt cold. I was shivering in my t-shirt and pants, but I knew I couldn't turn back. I didn't even want to stop moving, I just wanted to keep going, and hopefully leave this place behind; leave this feeling behind. I felt the cold air on my face as I walked through the woods, yet I never heard the sound of the breeze through the tall trees.

I walked and I walked, hoping to get away from whatever it was that I felt, but it didn't work. I sped up my pace, yet still I felt it just as I felt the cold air. There was no sound. Not even my footsteps on the stone path made a single sound. I felt so isolated, yet I didn't feel lonely. I felt as if I was being watched by the trees that grew far above my head, yet there were no eyes. All was quiet, until I heard something behind me.

My whole body turned around and in an instant, I felt my heart sink. It was a shadow, but it wasn't like the one I had met before, this one was different. It had white beady eyes that glowed like headlights, and its body had a thin white outline, like a satellite eclipsing a star. It stepped towards me, but then it stopped. Someone else was here, and they made themself pretty clear.

He stepped out from the bushes, knife ready and full of hate. For a moment, I could read rage in his face, and then it turned into confusion. In front of me, The man stood strong, and behind me, a shadow of the pitch black sky stood strong, all three of us being equally as confused. I didn't know what to think other than fear and confusion, but I was still scared out of my mind more than anything.

The two looked at each other, then they looked at me, and then back to each other. I knew I wasn't going to make it out of here alive. The shadow came up behind me and grabbed me, holding me in its thick arms. I thought initially it was just going to take me somewhere, but it didn't. It just held me in place. The man walked up to me, and I knew what he was going to do.

Pausing for a moment, he stared into my eyes as I struggled in the shadow's arms. He stabbed me in the chest 3 times, with everyone I felt my grip on the world slip a bit, but I tried to hold on, just as Taurie did. He pulled the blade out, and just as the coronian did to Taurie, he positioned the knife horizontally, and pressed it against my face. Instinctively, I raised my arms to block it, catching most of the damage with my palms.

I screamed as loud as I could, but nothing came out. Everything begun to darken, I couldn't see anything. It wasn't black, it wasn't white, it was nothing. It was like I was staring out at the void. It was like looking out of the back of my head, and all I saw was nothing. I was at the mercy of whatever twisted things they wanted to do with me. I felt the blade leave my face, and I felt my palms getting cut. Whatever they were doing, it must have been based on what happened to Taurie.

The shadow dropped me after I felt my hands getting cut, I felt myself get thrown onto the ground. I thought they would just leave me on the path, but the shadow picked. I made sure to count my steps on the off-chance that I somehow make it out alive. It shifted its hold, picking me up my the legs and smacking my back into a tree. It knocked the wind out of me, and I could hear the both of them laughing at me as I lay there choking on air.

I tried to pick myself up, but I felt numb for a moment. I couldn't see them, but I heard them walking towards me, still laughing at me. They started talking to each other, but my hearing was blurry and overcome by a loud ringing. I could barely make out any sounds, other than vague speech. All I could do was try my best to hold on as best as I could. I didn't know what they were planning on doing with me, but then I could feel them walking towards me.

It did not take too much thinking to come to the horrifying conclusion of what was about to happen to me. I knew they were trying to recreate Taurie's situation with me, and remembering what I saw when I walked into the the main room of the house, I braced myself for what was about to happen. Both of them stood over me, and I could feel them grab my feet, and then I heard both of them begin to count down in unison.

"Three!"

"Two!"

"One!"

I felt both of my legs rip from the upper leg down. I didn't know how bad it really was, but it felt like there wasn't much left of them. The two left me alone to die in the forest. I couldn't believe it for a second, but this was real life. This was my destiny wasn't it? To remain alone in the middle of the woods, blind and bloody? Was I going to become just another missing person? Just another life 'taken away too soon'? Ripped away from my home only to die here all alone?

No. Even though I couldn't see and I was just on the brink of death, I wasn't going to die. I couldn't. I'd come this far and I wasn't going to give it all up only to seal my fate all alone. The only thing I could make out was them saying something about how I was going to die all alone and separated from everyone I ever loved, but I wasn't going to let it happen. I was going to survive no matter what. I was going to fight all of the odds, and even if it was the last thing I would ever do, even if it was in my dying breaths, I would take my revenge. Not just for I, but for all of the souls that were ripped away too soon by that monster. I put nearly every ounce of my remaining soul to place a curse on Him, a curse that he will not run away from, a curse that revenge will be given. The vengeance I felt was like nothing I've ever felt before, so strong and pure, so fiery. It was the only thing holding me to this world and I wasn't going to let the flame die out, not today.

That's the end of Chapter Four.

Chapter Five is available here.

"It was a very typical May day, although things were pretty awkward. Jaiden, Carmin, Crimson, Cobalt, Savarra, and I were all at our new favourite restaurant in Kosoda, the Leaping Fish Seafood Restaurant. The food there is amazing, and even though the place is a bit old-fashioned, I still enjoy it. At this point everyone in our group new about the whole Keplar thing, and a lot of us knew he was planning to go back at the end of June to return it.

We were all talking, when we were approached by a girl who seemed to be around my age. She said that her name was Zoey, and apparently her group hadn't gotten any napkins so she was asking if she could some of ours. I accepted and grabbed a bunch from the stack that was on the table. As we walked to Zoey's table, she complimented my horns, and I in turn said that her hair was gorgeous. I placed the napkins on the table, but before I went back, she asked be a question.

"Hey, do you want to maybe hang out some time? Like your group and mine?"

"Sure! We don't really have anything going on, so I'll go ask my friends."

Although it was an unlikely start, our two groups seemed to get along pretty well. All of Zoey's friends were really nice and I wanted to get to know them better, so we arranged a hangout that weekend in Stonemill. Before too long, it was all set up and planned out. I was pretty excited for it, as usually the only people I hang out with are my own friends. Who knew some napkins could start a new friendship?"

- Mercury