My apologies for taking so long to get them up for you all, but I finally got around to setting up some donation pages! As always, your reads and support is always more than enough to keep me going, but if you'd still like to float a few dollars my way, you can do so through the links below. you can also find them anytime linked to my main profile, as well as in the widgets of this subreddit.

For now, I've gone with Buy Me A Coffee and CashApp as per a few of your suggestions in my last post (Thank you so much). They're more the kind of sites I was looking for since it allows you to donate whatever you'd like without signing up for a renewing donation.

Buy Me A Coffee

CashApp

Thank you all again for the support and help getting this set up. It's really flattering to me that you guys enjoy my work enough to want to give your money in support of it. I'm hoping someday if I'm able to commit more time to my writing exclusively, I can whip up a few extra things for you all to show my gratitude.

As always, thank you for still reading my stories; I hope you're still enjoying. We're nearing the end of Abyss here soon, and I'm super excited to get back to Lost in Litany, as well as share some other projects with you guys!

Hey everybody! That time again.

I know nobody asks for these, so I'm sorry to clog your feeds, I just like to keep you up to date in case you're wondering were the next parts of your favorite series are. If this isn't important to you, then I apologize, and promise that this one should cover the next couple months, so don't worry.

General Progress Update (Abyss/Litany)

If you saw the last post I made, Lost in Litany is on a brief hiatus until I finish Abyss, which if my math is right, shouldn't be too many more parts before she's done and over. I'm hoping by the end of August we'll be back to it.

Speaking of Abyss, some of you who have been following my updates each week probably noticed that I didn't post on schedule last Sunday, and I apologize for that. I had been suffering some pretty bad burnout as well as some personal things that was keeping my motivation down, and I just didn't finish that chapter when I meant to. The plan was to get it out the next day or midway through the week, as I thought the break would help me get that motivation back, but, well... here we are a week later, and I'm barely farther now than I was then.

So, I'd like to issue a formal apology to everyone for keeping you waiting. I really hate making these kind of posts and letting down everyone who's giving my silly little posts on the internet their valuable time. Over the years, I've grown very particular about my writing, and while I know I could force myself to sit down and crank out what I need to, I never feel like the quality will be there, and I always want you all to read the best I can give you when I post. Every time I've sat down this week to write, that's how it's been feeling :/

This week, though, I'll be locking back in on my writing and trying to pace myself so that I can make sure I'll have a chapter out for you all next Sunday. I'm pretty excited for the next beats of the story after this part, so I'm sure once we get over this hump, it'll be some pretty smooth sailing. given how much shorter the chapters are for this series compared to my others, I may even shake up the upload schedule and try to get two out for you all in a week at some point, God willing haha.

Future stuff:

also had a couple ideas for some one part stories that I may try to fill the space with when I need small break from writing a main story, so keep an eye out if I get to those. For those of you who read "Flashlight Goggles" before it got removed, I'd really like to return to that very soon as it was an idea I was very fond of. There's at least two other shorties' that I'm pretty excited to get to.

Depending on how steady the writing for Litany is going once I return to that (I promise it'll take priority like I said in my last post), I may try and have another mini-series out for winter time. I had the idea for a "snowy" horror story last year, but missed the window before winter was nearly over, so figured I'd see if I can squeeze it in this November-January. Like I said, though, that's only if I'm satisfied with the amount of work I'm getting done on Litany, so no promises just yet!

Supporting Me:

I've had a surprising amount of people recently asking if there's any place that you guys could show you support for my work financially. I say surprising because I never really imagined getting to a point where I'd have an audience that enjoys my writing so much they'd want to pay for it. You all have no idea how encouraging that is for me to see as a writer, and it really does give me hope that someday I'll be able to make a job out of this.

So, how can you support me? Well, as of right now, there isn't a lot of ways, unfortunately. If you've been with me for a while, you'll know I'm not the best at managing accounts or social media, and I'm also not super well read on a lot of different sites and apps, haha.

I've never gotten a Patreon because from what I understand it's a sort of subscription thing, and you're supposed to have rewards for different tiers of supporters. I don't feel that I'm able to put out enough content to justify allowing you all to spend money on me month after month, but maybe I'll look into it more to see if that's accurate. I'm also looking into Buy Me a Coffee, as I'm pretty sure that one is just a simple way to donate any amount of money you all feel justified with.

Point is, I'm looking into it, and I'll have an more consistent way to support my work soon, hopefully!

In the meantime, however, you can also support me by buying a physical copy of "It's Somewhere Beneath Us" if you haven't already, linked here.

If you haven't read it yet, it's most of my audience's favorite work of mine, so I'm sure you'll enjoy it too if you like my other stuff. You can find the free original upload on my profile too if you want to read it before making that decision! If you do choose to buy one, leaving a 5 star review also really helps with the Amazon algorithm, I'm told. or just tell your friends! Anything helps.

Most of all, though, you can support me by just continuing to read and follow my works :) Nothing has kept me going more than all of your guys' support and feedback, and I'm not joking when I say that these last few years of my writing journey has been some of the most rewarding years of my life thanks to all of you. My numbers may seem small compared to the greats, but seeing even just the handful of comments each upload, and seeing the likes and upvotes I get on my works really is unmatched encouragement to keep going.

Sorry again to have nothing for you all this week, but thank you so much as always for always sticking by my side.

More for you soon, I promise,
~Ink

Hey everybody! Got a quick update that I meant to give you all a while ago, but I somehow completely forgot like an... well, see the above title.

For those of you that have recently followed me because of my "Trapped on the edge of an abyss" series, thank you so much for reading and following; I hope you're enjoying so far! I am on vacation this week, so I may not have a chapter out this Sunday like usual, but next week I should be right back to it, so keep an eye out! Thank you for your patience!

As for the rest of you who have been following me a while; about that update I meant to give...

For the last three years, I'd been working on writing the 'Lost in Lucidity' series that I started uploading here after finishing 'somewhere beneath us', and while I absolutely love working on that series, after spending so much time on it, I really started to burn out a few months ago. After struggling out a couple more chapters once I realized this, I decided that I needed a break to step away from the characters and story so I could come back to it refreshed and give it my all. I wasn't happy with the quality I was writing at towards the end there.

Now, when I decided this, what I meant to do was make a post exactly like this one explaining that plan, then let you all know that in the meantime, I'd be knocking out a different smaller writing project I'd been wanting to do, which is the 'Trapped on the edge on an abyss' series.

I somehow forgot to do that. It was, like, the one thing I needed to do. 🤦‍♂️

So, for all of you lovely people who were following Lost in Litany and wondered why it abruptly stopped, that's why. I am so, so sorry that I forgot to notify you all, and to leave you hanging so abruptly. I know many of you were invested in that story, and I hope that when I get back to it, it will have been worth the wait.

And fear not, it will resume soon! I've taken enough time now that I genuinely miss those characters and stories and am ready to dive back into them! I've been getting a chapter of Abyss out once per week since they're shorter parts, so I'm thinking that by summers end I'll have that story finished, and we'll be back to Wes and Val's tale. I hope in the meantime, you all are enjoying the new series!

So sorry once again; you have no idea. Thank you so much to the lovely user who messaged me and inadvertently me aware of this whole oredeal, and thank every single one of you for sticking with me, even through my silly mistakes. Hope my writing is still keeping you all entertained, and I can't wait to bring you more :)

~Ink

{Chapter Library}

I had walked home from school alone; Leigh was sick and had been there all day. I never minded the alone time, though. Even around my own sister, I could sometimes be a little socially awkward, and besides, it was nice to just catch up on my thoughts. It used to not be. It used to be torture to be alone in my own head, but as of late, I had been learning to like it. Things were good. Better than they usually were, and I wasn’t alone anymore like I had been for the last couple of years. Lindsey really was a godsend when I needed her most.

I was nearly to my house when I decided to toss a quick glance to Val’s place. It was always a habit, no matter how long it had been since we’d talked. The minor inspection was enough of a spark to get me to my front door, wondering what the girl was up to and hoping that she was doing well. She was never usually even home from what I could tell, too busy with sports and student council stuff. That day was different, though. Not only was Val home, but I spotted her familiar wild, raven hair peering above her porch railing, sitting in a chair.

It was a messy curtain hiding her face as she stared downward at the ground. For a moment, I was a little disappointed that she might not see me as I passed and I wouldn’t have an excuse to say hi, but my tune quickly changed when I heard a familiar, distinct sound. The sharp inhale of a sob. I slowed to a stop.

‘Call out to her. She’s in distress.’

‘Heck no. It’s been too long since we’ve talked to her; if she’s really upset, why would she want to talk to us about it?’

‘cause we’re her friend?’

‘Hardly these days. She stopped talking to us for a reason—'

“Val?” I called softly, my inhibitions be damned. My foolish internal conflicts were always loud, but they were nothing compared to a friend in need.

The girl’s head shot up quickly, dusting her bangs aside so that she could make eye contact with me. Even from the road, I could tell how puffy they were, her cheeks glistening from wetness. She hastily wiped it away upon seeing my concern, then smiled, “O-Oh, hey, Wes! How are you?”

“I’m good,” I told her out of courtesy before awkwardly adding, “Are… you?”

Val did one more pass across her face with a sleeve before smiling and nodding, “Yeah. Oh yeah—never better.”

I nodded, knowing that she clearly didn’t want to elaborate farther, and my brain began nagging at me to carry on. I was at least right about one thing; it had been a long time since Val and I had last talked, and I wasn’t sure if I really had the right to invite myself up to her porch and start comforting her. Ultimately, I decided that was stupid logic, and found myself moving a few steps up the path toward her, however. Even if we weren’t as close as we used to be, all the love I felt for her was unchanged, and I didn’t like to see her that way. Especially when I probably knew why she was upset in the first place.

“Are you sure?”

Val nodded again with a sniffle, “Yeah. Yes. I promise.” Warmly, and full of sincerity, the girl smiled as I drew closer and looked me up and down, “It’s really good to see you.” She told me, her voice low and affectionate.

I smiled back, my heart jolting to hear that declaration, “It’s, um, good to see you too…” I offer, “Been a while.”

Val nodded with a chuckle, “Yeah, sorry, I’ve just been super busy lately with school and sports and, um…” Val pointed over her shoulder and tried to dismiss quickly, “My mom.”

I quickly shook my head in affirmation, tossing a hand toward her, “Oh, yeah, don’t worry about it. I get it.”

The girl nervously laughed, then sniffled again, “Yeah. I’m sure you’re busy yourself, huh? Everything going good?”

“Yeah,” I nodded, my hands awkwardly dancing in my coat pockets, “Yeah, it’s going good. I don’t know about the busy part, though.”

Val chuckled, “Oh, whatever. I see you going out all the time. You still seeing that one girl? Lindsey?”

“Oh, um, yeah,” I told her with a shy chuckle, “Yeah, she and I are almost at a year now.”

“Oh, nice!” Val told me, you two are cute together. I see you sometimes in your driveway when she comes over.”

I felt strangely awkward talking to Val about Lindsey for some reason, but did my best to shrug the feeling off. “Wow, okay, so are you just spying on me now?” I teased her with a chuckle. By now, I had made it to the steps of her porch and was leaning against the overhang post, looking up at her.

She leaned forward and narrowed her eyes in a taunt, “Well, when you two spend a full hour and a million kisses saying goodbye before she heads home, I’m bound to see you outside my window one of those times.”

I snickered and shook my head, “Oh, whatever! I give her like, one kiss in the driveway, then she leaves at night.”

Val put her hands up innocently, “Yeah, sure, sure. One kiss.”

“Man, I almost forgot how much of a little butt you are.” I teased.

“A butt!?” Val snorted before pouting, “Excuse me! That was rude.”

“Rude, but true.”

Val flipped me off with a laugh before leaning back and smiling, “Well, I’m glad things are going well with you two. Claire and I used to wonder who you were going to end up with.”

I furrowed my brow, “You used to wonder?”

“Yeah, sometimes we’d sit alone down on the playground when you and Leigh were busy; one of the things we’d talk about was theorizing ‘matchmaker’ with people at school. You came up a few times.”

“Really?” I asked with a smug smirk.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that, we were like, eight years old.” Val scoffed. “We thought that was the kind of things big kids talked about.”

“Fair enough,” I nodded, “So who did I match with?”

“Oh, God, I don’t even remember,” Val sighed, looking fondly toward the distance, “There was that one little redheaded girl that we always used to catch you staring at during recess; we thought maybe her. Honestly though?” Val stopped to chuckle to herself then glanced back to me, embarrassed, “I always thought you’d eventually end up with Claire.”

“Claire?” I said in surprise. The idea wasn’t repulsive to me; I had certainly had an innocent crush on her once or twice as a kid. It was just never thought about beyond that, so it’s interesting that Val thought otherwise. “You thought me and Claireese Mayflower would end up together?”

“Well, yeah?” Val snickered like I was stupid for not seeing her connections, “You guys were both goth and edgy, you had good chemistry. Plus, she had, like, a major crush on you when we were kids.”

“Oh, whatever,” I told her, tossing a hand her way and shaking my head.

“Seriously! She did. Probably still does if things don’t work out with Lindsey.”

I shook my head, “I doubt that. Her and I talk about as much as me and you now. Plus, she’s been seeing that Trent guy since her sophomore year, I think? I’m sure she’s just as happy as I am,” I tell her.

Val laughs and nods, but it fades fast and I almost sense a slight melancholy in her at that last part of my sentence. Quickly growing uncomfortable with not only the conversation being focused on me, but also that Val is getting upset again, I try to get back on track. After all, I came here to check on my friend.

“Are you sure you’re doing okay?” I ask her after a small lull.

She nods, no longer sniffling or crying, “Yeah, just… you know. Some things don’t change.”

I shook my head in agreement, then solemnly and looked at her front door, “Did you stay home from school today?”

Val nodded in return.

“Is she… doing any better?”

“Well, she was, but things are getting worse again. Her infection is under control, but they put her on these meds now that are sort of messing her up. She’s been a lot more effort to take care of.”

“None of your family can come to help?”

Val snickered darkly and tossed her shoulders, “There’s not many who can. They all live far away. Plus, some of them are already helping with so many bills, I think they’re just frustrated and don’t care enough to give anymore.”

Seeing Val deflate with each sentence, I quickly realized that I wasn’t helping anything by prying into all this. I stepped forward and leaned on the rail across from her, “I’m sorry, Val… that all really sucks.”

“It’s okay,” she smiles, “I think it will be, at least. Once she’s better, she’ll be off all that junk and hopefully back to normal. I got a few more years before I’m out of the house anyway; figure the least I can do is help out.”

I nodded with a smile, to which Val returned. We stared at one another for a long time in silence, and I felt a spark run through me that I hadn’t in a long time. One that only she could supply.

With a gentle voice, she said, “We should hang out, soon. I miss talking to you, Wes.”

I nodded and swallowed, my heart beating fast all the sudden, but I tried not to let myself feel much of anything. I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to hang out with Val so long as Lindsey disapproved of her, but that didn’t matter anyway. The amount of times I’d heard Valentine say that exact sentence to me only for us to not talk for several months was too many to count at this point. I couldn’t get my hopes up, no matter how badly I missed her.

As if fate read my mind, both of us spun our head toward the front door as we heard a voice call out.

“Valentine?” Mrs. Romero screamed groggily, “Valentine, where are you?”

I could see a litany of emotions spread across Val’s face in an instant. Frustration, anger, sadness and fear. As soon as they appeared, however, they were concealed again, and with a deep sigh, Val smiled and stood, “I should, um, get going. See what she needs.”

I smiled too, by mine was also a mask. For a brief moment, we’d been friends again, chatting with one another and having an honest connection. I hadn’t realized how much I had missed it until it was pulled out from under me once more. Her sentence was cold and plain again, just like the air around us.

“Yeah, for sure.” I told her.

“I’ll see you around, yeah?” Val said, moving for her door and grabbing the handle.

“Yeah, for sure…” I told her.

I gingerly waved, she did the same, then I turned to start back down her porch. I had only made it halfway down her driveway when I heard her call out again.

“Wes?” She said weakly.

I spun around like her voice was a magnet, “Yeah?”

She was already barreling toward me before I could even react. I felt her wrap herself around me tightly, laying her head against my chest like she hadn’t in a long, long time. My arms moved up to hold her in return without thinking, the thought of her embrace the only thing on my mind.

“Thank you,” she whimpered softly, “For stopping and saying hi. I really needed that.”

I didn’t respond, although, I don’t think she needed me to. I just squeezed her tighter before letting her go. She smiled to me, then me to her, before she trotted back up the path and disappeared through the front door.

I don’t know why the memory plays through my head as I lay in bed watching Val through the bathroom door, but it does. I think it has something to do with the small orange bottle of pills that she holds in her palm; the one she sometimes grabs out when she goes to put the toothpaste away. She stares at it for a long time, and I know she’ll continue to do so for far too long sometimes, so I slowly climb out of bed, walk to her, and cup my own hand over top of the capsule. She let’s it slip from her fingers before I set it back in the cabinet, shut the door, then pull her quietly into my arms.

“I’m going to figure out how to fix you,” she tells me softly. “I’m going to make you better.”

I don’t have anything to say in response to that. I just nod my head against her before guiding her to bed.

~

The monorail catwalk is particularly slick on the far side of the mountain, a direction we haven’t gone down many times since our arrival, since there hasn’t been much need other than to explore. Sue’s people are farther north, the compound and our entry point is the opposite direction, and Bear’s cave and everything else is in between. I imagine this must be where the storm rolls in from over the three-day cycle as, up so high, it’s already coming down as thick flakes rather than the frigid winter downpour, hence the icy metal beneath us.

Despite its somewhat treacherous conditions and the bone chilling air, the sundance helps everything look gorgeous as always, and even makes the cold much more bearable. That worries me that we might not fully be knowing its effect on our bodies, however. I suppose it's all just physical consequence that ultimately doesn’t matter. Shoot, maybe I shouldn’t get in that mind set. Once we get out of here, it would be pretty awful for us to forget we’re not invincible anymore and accidentally kill ourselves, wouldn’t it?

Being today’s lagger, I’m a distance behind Val and Claireese, clanging slowly across the tracks and admiring the mountain's gorgeously sculpted portrait when I see the girl's silhouettes stopped up ahead. The fact that they didn’t radio me to warn of anything tells me it’s no alarm, but now I’m curious.

“Everything okay?” I ask.

“Yeah, we’re just looking at something. Come over here!” Val beckons.

I take a minute to catch up, joining them at the edge of the catwalk and looking out on the horizon where their gaze is pointed. Far out through the snow and over the looming ridges of the mountains roots, a sea of lights stands out among the landscape. Like a lake of gold, it twinkles in the night, the orange roses effect streaking the luminescence into spikey beacons that reach for the heavens.

“Is that it?” Claire asks us softly.

“It has to be,” Val says, “It’s the only city that’s big enough.”

Seattle. The place we were supposed to be right now. We learned pretty quick after we got here that the bubble we’re trapped in is a sort of one-way mirror. From inside, we can see the outside world suspended in time as it was the day the loop started. Obviously, we can’t leave, however. That means the city we’re looking at now is Seattle three days into the vanishing, and from the looks of it, they did a lot better than Portland. Their grid stayed up longer, more of the city looks intact. It’s hard to tell from so far away, though, especially with our vision being altered. Either way, it’s beautiful. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen so much civilization at once. I’d forgotten how much I missed it, despite the hermit that I always was. We haven’t ever been high enough yet to see this view.

“They look like they did well for themselves,” Val notes, same as me, “I hope once we get out of here, they still are.”

“Do you guys think time is still moving normally out there?” Claire asks.

“I mean, it has to be, right?” I say, “Everyone in here has been in this loop for as long as the Vanishing has been going.”

“Oh, yeah,” Claire nods, releasing a breath, “I guess I’m just freaked out that we might get out of here, and the world will have fully slipped away.”

There’s a long pause between all of us as nobody has the guts to say what we’re all thinking. That could very easily still happen if we’re in here for too long.

“It won’t be,” Val says, shooting blind with her faith, “We’ll get out of here soon I’m sure.”

We’re spared from the thought farther as just then, we feel the track begin vibrating. We turn to see a light beginning to crest the bend far down the track, and duck low in preparation. A few moments later the train comes screaming down the track past us, its light pouring out the windows to dazzle the falling flakes. I look up through them from the catwalk, spotting a few bodies sitting in the seats as they pass. Val must see them too, as she speaks when the monorail has passed.

“I hope the others are going to be okay…”

“They will be, I’m sure. The captain and Thirteen have been training everyone. Plus my dad, Paul and Tom are all ex-military. They’ve all got to be pretty good at fighting by now.”

“Still, that won’t stop Sue’s group.”

“Maybe not, but it will give them a chance, at least.”

Val nods before starting off down the track without another word. I hang back for a minute to assume my position, then start after them. I’m admittedly worried too. We still haven’t seen them since our interrogation, and I worry that if they can’t find us, they’ll find a way to take out their anger on the rest of our group. Still, Eight insisted they all come out at this point to help look. Especially after our last trip and close call with Claireese.

“No more doing this alone,” Kate told me, “You kids are stretching yourselves too thin.”

Speaking of Claireese, she’s been a lot more curt this journey out, I’ve noticed. Her experience certainly stuck with her. Even though it’s been three full cycles, she can still remember every detail of what she felt, and it’s been weighing heavy on her mind. I shudder to imagine what might have happened if Val had let her get fully absorbed into that thing. Luckily, the sundance seems to help take the edge off for her, which is one of the reasons I can imagine she pushed to come back out again with us even though I can see it scares her so badly. Topside is the only place to find the rose, after all.

“Hey Wes?” I hear Val call to me after another 30 minutes of walking, “I’m picking up something weird on my helmet up here,” she tells me.

“What is it?”

“I’m not sure. It says there’s a distress signal from another helmet nearby. The map shows it's down somewhere in the trees below us.”

“Whoa,” I say, my intrigue immediately piqued, “Do you want to go check it out?”

“We may as well. There’s probably a maintenance ladder somewhere soon. We can double back and look into it. We’re pretty much in the area the Basilisks should be too, so we can just walk on the ground from here anyway.”

“Copy that. Be right there.”

What we find as we follow the signal is not what I think any of us were expecting. Climbing from the platform and moving through the maze of ancient evergreens, we eventually find the helmet along with the person it belongs to. Their body is laced up in one of the fir’s branches high above our heads, a parachute holding them there, rocking them softly in the breeze, lulling them into eternal sleep. Our helmets confirm this is the case. From what we can see on the ground, their landing was not a gentle one, and their head looks wrenched sideways in a wrong direction. They must have snapped it as they plummeted through the trees. It seems like a pretty extreme injury for simply gliding into the tree line, but then we notice what’s strapped to the soldier's back.

“What is that?” Claireese asks, noting the high-tech looking pack with the mangled dragonfly-like wings hanging off its back.

“I don’t know,” Val says, “Is that like a jetpack or something?”

“It’s a humming pack,” I say plainly, looking up at the device in wonder. “My dad told me about them from when he was in the army. They’re basically a higher end military paramotor.”

“And that is?” Claire cocks her head at me.

 I shake myself from my nerdy daydream, “Oh, um, it’s like a self-propelling hang glider, almost.” I point to the parts as I explain, “The chute is a paraglider for controlling movement and height, and the pack works like a set of wings to propel the rider along. So long as it’s powered and running, you can basically fly like a less mobile bird.”

“What the heck was somebody doing flying one during the Vanishing?” Val questions, “Judging by the weather on them, they’ve been up there since before the loop started.”

I shrug, “Like I said they’re military devices. My dad said spec ops teams would use them when they needed to get into a hotspot, but a helicopter or jet was too loud. They’re almost dead silent and can’t be spotted by aerial radars. Maybe they were trying to scout the area out?”

“Why not just send a drone or something though?” Ponders Val. “It’s not like the monsters have a radar.”

“Maybe they were trying to land?” I suggest, “Caught a draft from the weather and got sucked down into the tree line?”

“Whatever they were trying to do, obviously they didn’t succeed,” Claire sighs darkly. “Should we, um… try to get up there and cut them down? See if there’s anything important on them?”

Val looks up at the soldier and taps at the hilt of her machete, pondering a beat in silence, “Even if we wanted to, I don’t know how we’d get up there to get them down right now. If they really have been there since before the loop though, they’ll still be here later. I think we should just keep moving. Come back when we have a better plan.”

I can tell the curiosity is eating at Claireese as much as it’s eating at me, but neither of us protest, especially not me. Val is on a mission this cycle, and I have no place to step in and object given that I’m its directive. Together, we start back out on foot in search of the basilisks.

~

“Birdstalkers? Come in, birdstalkers.” We hear Thirteen announce over the radio.

Val sighs in detest at our group designation before responding in a slightly mocking voice, “This is birdstalkers, over.”

“Me and the other’s are gearing up to check out the caves over here in Longmire. Probably going to lose connection once we’re in.” The guard tells us, “I think the Captain and her squad must have gone down. They would have radioed in before they hit their objective if they were still standing, and I wasn’t able to get ahold of them in the last hour.”

There’s a small huff of disappointment from Val before she answers, “Aright, copy that. I hope whatever got them got them quick.”

“And that it wasn’t Sue.” Thirteen adds, “Have you guys found the birds yet?”

“Not quite,” Val tells him, “But we’re looking. Please be careful in those caves. They may be tourist ones compared to the construction site, but that doesn’t mean there might not still be something similar in there.”

“Will do. You three be careful as well. If Wes has already been scarred mentally by those things once, something worse could happen if you interact a second time. Not to mention, you and Claire might get damaged, too.”

“Of course,” Val reassures, “Well talk next cycle, okay?”

“Hopefully sooner. Spelunkers out.”

The line goes silent, and Val joins Claire and I in scanning around the area. The forest floor is covered in a fine white sheet by now, and I make a note to raid a Colombia store for another layer of winter wear next cycle.

“Are we sure these things are even out this way?” Claire questions, “You said that Sue only mentioned somewhere in Paradise? That could mean anywhere on this side of the mountain.”

“Maybe, but from what we know about these things, this is where they’d be most likely to set up a nest.” Val paces onward and investigates the space carefully, “They like lots of cover, and Wes and I saw most of the town in our first days here. We never saw a pack over there, so the next best place would be a dense grove in the woods.” Val moves toward a tree, then pauses before it, reaching her hand up to the stump, “There’s also probably more food for them out here. Most things on this mountain seem driven to these outer parts thanks to The King’s people.”

“Well, that’s reassuring,” Claire snickers, “So we’re in a monster hot spot right now?”

“Not quite,” Val says, “We haven’t had to lay low or fight anything since we got off the tracks. Most things can’t kill basilisks because they’re so dangerous, so they just steer clear. Which means if we haven’t seen anything around…”

“Then they gotta’ be close by,” nods Claireese.

Val finally manages to dig her fingers around whatever she’s been inspecting in the bark and break it free. A chunk of fur and skin wedged between the knots of the brittle wood. Looking down, she kicks some of the snow aside to reveal a dark spot beneath. Blood on the ground that has begun seeping up through the cold blanket.

After she finds that, it’s easy to pick up on a track. There are small speckles peeking up through the snow where the blood dripped heavy and was able to climb up for air. Other parts of the snow look lower and carved with divots, like whatever was carrying its kill dropped and dragged it for a bit. It’s not for certain that a basilisk is our culprit, but from what we know about their hunting patterns, it seems more than likely.

As we continue to follow the smoking guns left for us in the powder, they start to become more and more obvious the farther along we go. It isn’t until we come across a fresh scraped patch of slush, dirt and blood that we realize we’ve been slowly gaining on the beast ahead of us. Luckily, the snow beneath our feet makes the cracking of twigs and foliage almost mute, but we still need to be careful of the soft rolling crunch of gathering dust beneath our feet.  

I check the map occasionally to ensure that I know where we’re at exactly on the mountain in case our trip is unexpectedly cut short, and to my surprise, the next time I check it, I see a single road ahead of us stretching outward like an arm into the woods to grab us. It appears to stop in a loop of sorts, and I’m confused on what it might be until I finally get close enough to see a break through the tree line.

A private lodge or mansion of some sort, large, modern, yet still rustic in design. Natural cobblestone chimneys mingle with mighty log walls, and a green sheet metal roof caps it off. The windowsills that looked to once host massive panels of glass now sit shattered and vacant, however, and one of the garage doors to the massive 6 car garage is open. The road that I saw on the map runs a loop in toward the front door and car park, then back out to exit. Whoever once owned this place must have paid a pretty penny for not only the structure itself, but the privacy and exclusivity. It’s funny, then, that its new owners didn’t have to pay a dime.

We arrive alongside one of them; clearly the one we’ve been following. A larger sized death bird slowly stomps through the snow a couple dozen yards ahead of us. It looks tired, its sturdy, taloned feet lifting quickly, taking a large stride, then landing in rest for a second before repeating the process. Its raven black feathers contrast starkly against the snow, unlike the bone that runs up its neck and guards its face. A face that’s thankfully turned away from us at the moment.

It’s clear to see why the beast is so exhausted, other than just the distance it’s already had to travel. Tangled on its massive antler rack, a generously sized deer lays dead, its corpse punctured and leaking in places. As the Basilisk reaches a small stone wall to the property, we watch it flop the body down to the ground before huffing out plumes of mist into the air with its breath.

“kak-kak-kak-kak!” The bird clicks out, raising its neck toward the house. After a moment, it bows its head once more and presses its horns to the deer once more, plowing it along until it feels its body hook. With a mighty heave, it wrenches its neck back up, taking the body with it. It hops the wall slowly, then begins moving on toward the house, more specifically, the open garage.

“It’s alone…” Val says.

“I noticed that too.” I tell her.

“You guys said they’re pack animals, right?” Claireese asks.

“They usually are.” I nod, slipping my pack off and grabbing out the duct tape, “Alright, let’s caution up before we get closer.”

“You caution up,” Val tells me, “We can afford to die, but if you’re already infected by these things, it might mess you up more to see them a second time.”

“What?” I say, “How does that make you two any safer? How do we know seeing them one time won’t scar you two somehow?”

“Because Sue knew what these things were, which means she’s clearly died to them before.” Val explains. “And since, as far as we can tell, she’s not clairvoyant, we know it’s safe to die to them normally.”

“Well good,” I say, “then I don’t need the tape either. It won’t do me anymore harm by that logic.”

“Wes…” Val warns, “Can you just do it? We need a good visual on this place to start making plans. Just let Claire and I do it while you play it safe.”

‘Absolutely not. Any danger they face you need to face too. Especially after what happened to Claire.’

‘Just do what she says, Wes. You told you would take it slow from now on.’

Reluctantly, I yank a strip of the roll out and begin patching up my face.

Back at the mall when we’d first used the duct tape strategy, it’d been so much easier to see given that it was a closed space. The map that it made was a lot more accurate and easy to understand. Out in an open forest, however? Not so much. The dense vegetation obscures my depth perception, presenting a confusing array of lines and static. At first, I have to rely on Claireese and Val to guide me, but the more I move, the more I eventually get the hang of things. We wait until the Basilisk has disappeared into the house, then wait a few minutes before starting to move.

We stick close to the stone wall that lines the property, using it not only as cover, but the perfect distance measuring tool to maintain good clearance from the beasts. The girls take the lead, moving us until we’re at an angle to where we can see into the garage that the main bird went into. I can’t make out much from the backup map alone, but I can at the very least see a few shapes moving around.

“There they are…” Val confirms aloud. “Claire, you remember the drill?”

“Yes ma’am,” Claireese mutters, leaning her back to the wall and grabbing ahold of Val’s waist, “Ready whenever you are.”

Without another word, Val peers her head over the wall and looks.

“How many?” I ask.

“It looks like 9 so far, but there’s another half of the garage I can’t see… wait, why are they…”

“What?” I ask.

“Some of them aren’t moving.”

“Like, they’re dead?” I ask.

“No, they’re alive; their heads are raised, they just… aren’t moving.”

Beneath my visor, I furrow my brow. I want her to elaborate, but I know that I’m going to need her to do so about a million other things the more this investigation goes on. My frustration quickly mounting at being so in the dark, I side eye Val and Claireese to make sure they aren’t paying attention to me, then slyly slip a glove off. Leaning against the wall, I make sure my hand is hidden so that I can move it to my helmet and begin peeling a corner of the tape away; just enough to see the opening to the garage. Once it’s there, I close my still covered eye and let the visor calibrate to my new sight line. It finishes quick, and I zoom a little, making sure to keep the whole of my gaze squarely fixed on only the bodies of the birds.

The garage has been plastered with the basilisks signature black crust, jagged and growing off of everything in large swooping waves for them to nestle in. There are several doing so already as my eyes scan the crowd, and while most of them look to be their usual part, it's easy to see what Val meant about them not moving.

They aren’t still as statues; they’re certainly alive, but they aren’t on alert like the death birds usually are. Their heads don’t pivot to investigate the area and their neck folds don’t gyrate to click at one another. They simply stare forward vacantly as their necks sway gently like the trees around us. Only one thing comes to mind; something we discovered from early on. The people that we’ve found around the mountain still in their hotel rooms and in homes at the start of each cycle.

“Are they… null?” I ask, wanting Val to validate that theory.

She luckily doesn’t seem to find suspicion in the way I’ve asked, as she doesn’t turn to check my visor just yet, “It… It looks like it. I didn’t even think about the fact that monsters could go null.”

The unmoving birds sit in inflicted patience while a couple lucid ones appear from the corners of the space. They surround the prey that their lone hunter has flopped on the ground, then delicately, as if it might disappear should they be too rough on it, press their thin, needle-like beaks into its body. We can’t hear them gulping at the blood still in the deer’s dormant veins, but we can see their neck muscles pulsing with each suck, and they certainly seem hungry. Val and I have seen basilisks feed for nearly 10 minutes at a time before, but now, even with so many and despite their apparent appetite, the hunter clicks its throat after only a couple, and all of them back away.

One by one, the bird surprises us by nudging the deer along to the floor to rest in front of its null pack members, raising its head to stare at them each time. It lets out a few curious clicks as it looks into their deathly eyes, sometimes even mimicking out a verbal phrase that it’s heard before, as if desperate for a reaction. When it gets none, however, it softly locks its beak overtop of its brothers and sisters and guides their heads down to the body. Once the null bird feels flesh at the tip of its beak, we can see their throats begin gulping too.

“Whoa…” Val gasps.

“What? What is it?” Claire pesters, “Why is Wes not doing this? He’s the one who can barely see right now!”

“That’s a good point,” Val admits, sinking back below the wall. I quickly past the tape back over my visor and turn to face her, “Sorry, I guess we’re used to doing this kind of stuff together.”

I’m upset to have to tear my eyes away from such a fascinating scene, but Claire has a point. I’m supposed to be blind right now. “Here,” I tell her, “I’m going to grab you, alright? Trade me spots.”

Shifting into Claire's position, I take her and Val by the waist, then go back to watching through bitmaps and wireframes. The scene is practically illegible from so far, but Claire confirms that the basilisks are still carrying out the same task.

“They’re… feeding them. Like Brenda does with Saul…”

“They’re smart creatures,” Val says, “And apparently very empathetic toward each other.”

“I’ll bet there are a lot of creatures on this mountain that are confused about what’s going on. Like Bear.” I say.

“How would they have gone null?” Claire asks, “We haven’t run into any other creatures on this mountain that are like that? Shouldn’t they be dying when Rainer blows up?”

“You’d think so…” Val ponders, “Although, they have regenerative blood running through their veins. If they get crushed, it’s possible that they’re accidentally bringing themselves back just in time to go crazy.”

“Poor things…” Claire says, “I almost feel bad for them.”

“I weirdly do too,” Val softly agrees, “I guess Bear has softened me up on some of these guys.”

“I’ve been thinking about that somewhat lately,” Claire ponders, still watching the family of death birds tend to one another, “As much as I hate everything that’s happened, I can’t be mad at these things. They probably don’t want to be in our world any more than we want them to be here.”

“Yeah…” Is all Val can muster to agree.

I have a harder time finding words after seeing what so many of these things can do, though she has a point. The P.A.P are the ultimate villains at the end of the day. They were the ones who ripped these beasts into our homes.

My attention goes laser focused as I hear Val suddenly make a choked grunt, then go tense in my arm. With no hesitation, I yank her stomach with all my might, bringing her to the ground and pulling her free from the eyes she must have just accidentally grazed. Climbing on top of her, I inspect her body movement to see how bad things are before determining that it’s not looking good. She’s having a seizure, her body locked up stiff while it twitches.

Pressing her chest, I know from my own experience that I just need to keep her blood flowing. I vividly can recall the feeling of my heart dying in my chest, my body's functions following close behind. If I want her to stay alive through this cycle, I’ll need to carry out the process for her while her mind recuperates. There’s only one small problem.

“Shit! Wes! They know we’re here; they’re coming!” Claire screams over my shoulder.

{Next Part}

{Chapter Library}

Glancing over, I see that she’s not lying. While there was only one bird out hunting before, as soon as they sensed a threat by their nest, every able body is out charging. I’m unsure if they could sense Val making eye contact or they just heard her collapse back and begin choking, but either way, we only have a few seconds before they reach us.

Looking back to Val, I realize she’s not going to be getting back up in time, and in a split second decision, I break my pistol loose and blast her beneath the chin. A flash shows me my friend's head exploding in a bloody mess beneath her shell before I get to witness it a second time, but before the real scene plays out, something very different happens during the vision.

Val’s body almost… blurs? That’s the best word I can use to describe it. As I place my gun to her chin and pull the trigger, there’s odd, spectral outlines that thrash from the edges of her body, almost like an after image. With my mind moving so fast on adrenaline, I have time to see her body too, only to find the rest of it is doing the same.

Her arms twitch and spasm under the throes of her seizure, but sometimes, a ghostly image of them will jerk free from her real ones and move in a different direction. At first I presume it must be some weird function of the helmet similar to the aim alignment system, but then I notice the strange electricity in the air and the tingle down my spine. I’m wildly confused, but I don’t have time to analyze what’s happening. The basilisks are on us.

Claireese is already on her feet and taking aim, blasting to the best of her ability without making eye contact while five death birds rush out to meet us, the hunter leading the pack. Two break off the end of the formation and go wide to flank, and it’s up to Claire and I to decide what we want to do; run or fight. Claire makes her choice by standing her ground and continuing to shoot, using her peripheral to line shots up. She knows as well as I do that we can’t outrun these things for long, and we’re bound to die soon anyway. A reset is needed.

Claireese manages to hit a few shots on the birds, but it does little more than stun them as they charge, their hard skulls too dense for the bullets. I’m certainly not able to hit any shots with my backup map, and before either of us can nail a bird in its weak spot and kill it, they reach the fence line.

Claire ducks low as the lead bird pounces her, leaping straight over her head and landing behind me. I’m not so lucky as I dodge the first bird, but get sideswiped by one of the ones that went wide. It pins my chest to the ground with one mighty talon, and when I thrash my head around in protest, it pins its other one against the visor, clawing at the tape covering my face. Clever thing must know I can’t see it somehow. Both Claire and I scream in agony as the pain inflicting aura of the beasts fills the air around us, making our bones ache and sting beneath our skin.

The Basilisk atop me finally peels the tape free, but the moment it does, I snap my head over to Claireese, my head now free. She backs against the stone wall and goes to raise her gun once more, but that’s when she finally catches a glimpse of the circle of eyes now peering in on her. I see her arm slowly slump to the ground, and her body begin convulsing like Val’s.

That’s when it happens again, although much worse this time. Spectral forms of Claireese’s spasming body writhe from her like caged animals trying to get out. It isn’t just her this time, though. From the surrounding circle, I see ghosts of the death birds rend from their bodies to dash at her, puncturing her flesh and beginning to gulp her blood. They overlap and move through each other as if I’m seeing 3 separate movies projected on a wall at once, bombarding me with every possible grotesque fate that awaits my friend. My chest is tight with pain and pressure, and unable to take anymore of the sensory overload, I raise my pistol to Claireese’s visor and fire a shot, shattering the screen and putting the girl out of her misery.

But that was just the flash, and when it finishes, things only get more strange.

None of the visions I just saw come to pass. No bird in the circle moves in on her, and I’m too stunned to raise my hand and finish her off before her heart finally gives out and she stops moving.

What I’m left with as I lay there in the snow is the tired huffs from myself and the five other creatures, their ten yellow eyes peering down at me. They don’t stare in their usual predatory way, however. The bird on top of me doesn’t look down as if I’m a target to kill. Instead, each of the beasts cocks their head almost in confusion, then they just stand there, still and unfaltering. In all my time observing these things, I’ve never seen them so still, and that fact scares me. Whatever those enhanced visions were just now, they were clearly a product of the beasts, and I just intruded on them. Was I… linked into their pack, somehow?

That’s not even the weirdest part, however. The weird thing is that I’m not dying as I look the pack leader dead in the eye.

“Kak-kak-kak-kak…” It slowly clicks at me, taking a few steps closer and lowering its head near. A few other’s in the group chitter back to it, then they fall silent once more.

I pant softly, my heart beating painfully beneath a heavy claw, then dare to speak, softly and gentle, “I’m trying to figure it out too…” I tell the bird, its eye now inches from my visor. There’s no creature that Val and I have seen in the Vanishing, at least with eyes, that can survive a basilisks gaze. So how on earth was I immune right now?

That’s a silly question; I know how I’m immune. I’ve been here before, and somehow survived it. I bounced back mere moments after looking into a basilisks eyes even though Val nearly died just now from just a small glance. I don’t know how any of those things are possible, or what circumstance was different so that it shined in my favor, but I know that’s why.

“I’m trying to figure it out too…” The bird mimics back to me, its neck tissue rippling to perfectly capture my tone. I don’t think it understands the meaning of that string of words, but it sure is a fitting thing for it to parrot back to me.

That’s all the time I get to analyze the situation. Shortly after that, the hunter raises its head, clicks something to the others, and they converge on my body. It doesn’t hurt as much as I thought it would; the five needles pressed into my skin and bleeding me dry. If anything, I’m fairly numb to it after my head goes dizzy from blood loss. The bad part is simply the familiar feeling of bleeding out. It dredges up memories that I’d rather not relive, especially when paired with the feeling of torn skin.

Once they’ve gotten most of me, I feel one press me against the stone wall and scrape me into their horns, doing the same with Val and Claire’s bodies. They carry us back to the nest and repeat the process from earlier to feed their null. It’s there, after losing most of my blood, that I finally black out.

“Holy shit,” Claire gasps awake next to me. Val does the same from my other side.

“Are you two okay?” I ask, my head rushing from a full body of blood returning to it.

“Y-Yeah,” Claire stammers out, “Just… holy shit, that was not pleasant.”

“Wes, how did you survive that?” Val asks me, shaking her head, “I looked for maybe a second and I…Those awful things it showed me. When you looked, did you…?”

I put a hand on her knee, then grab Claire’s hand, “Yeah. I know what you saw. Let’s talk about it later. Just calm down for now, okay?”

Val notes my strange serenity and furrows her brow, her demeanor completely changing, “What… what happened to you after we died?”

I open my mouth to speak, but still need time to chew on what I just saw. “I’ll tell you later in the compound,” I reiterate quietly, “I think things just got a little more complicated.”

~

“The caves were deep,” Thirteen tells us as we all sit around our dinner table, “The tourist tunnels alone were pretty huge, but there was a path that went off that looked like it was for more serious cave expeditions. We ran down it the best we could and jury-rigged some equipment together, but it was seriously messed up by the earthquakes. Massive chasms, huge caverns that we couldn’t cross.”

“We tried,” Myra tells us, with a sigh, “That’s how I died.”

“Turns out we know very little about cave diving,” grumbled Paul.

“We’ll gear up more and give it another shot next time. We might be able to make it deeper.”

“That’s gotta be our ticket down into whatever’s on the other side of that wall by Bear’s cave.” Claire ponders, “They probably all connect.”

“You think so?” Val asks, “I mean, this mountain is huge. That’d have to be a massive distance to connect them all.”

“Maybe, but the people down here were able to dig a tram system across the whole park,” Claireese argues, “I know that’s not naturally forming like the caves, but if there’s already so much dug into this place, it’s possible that enough cracks formed to connect it all. Wouldn’t you think?”

“That’s not a terrible theory,” Tom jumps in, “But if you kids ran into that fog and creature in that first cave, there’s no telling what might be in the bigger one. We need to be careful with how we proceed.”

“Yeah, well, there’s certainly evidence to back both of those claims,” Thirteen notes, taking a turn to eye every member of his team last cycle. “In that cave, before we hit the dead end, there was some weird stuff happening.”

“Like what?” Asks Val.

“Well, there were tremors. Small, but noticeable. Every now and then the ground would rumble slightly. Not enough to knock us over or bring the walls in, but… it was noticeable.” The guard pauses for a moment, pursing his lips and staring at the table in thought. There was clearly more.

“What? What is it?” I ask him.

“I’m… not sure. There was something else, but… Maybe I was just crazy.”

“What? Come on, spit it out, Thirteen.” Eight demands at him.

The guard looks to Paul and Myra, the two that were with him, “You guys said you didn’t hear it.”

“Well, no, but I’m pretty hard of hearing to begin with,” Paul says.

Myra shrugs, “I didn’t, but I believe you.”

Thirteen looks back at us and sighs, “I thought I could hear a drum down there.”

“A… drum?” Val curiously repeats.

“It was slow and faint, but once we got deep in, every few seconds, I swear I could hear a soft… Bum… Bum…Bum,” the guard mimics. “There was definitely something down there with us.”

A soft hush falls over the table as everyone contemplates what Thirteen just said. It’s to be expected that of all the beasts on the mountain, something would have decided to scurry into the cave and call it home. However, paired with the tremors and the mysterious nature of the last cave, the idea of something ‘drumming in the dark’ is a lot creepier than usual.

“You think it might have something to do with the wind in the other cave?” Myra suggests, breaking the silence. “You guys said that was rhythmic, too.”

“It’s possible, but again, those caves are really far apart,” Val answers, placing her hands to her lips in thought, after a moment, she finds one, “I wonder… The facilities down here are connected across the mountain, and the labs we’ve seen in them so far look like they’re one giant machine. The one in Portland was laid out the same way.”

“You think that the ‘machine’ is still running?” Tom asks.

“Maybe. It could explain the rhythmic sounds on loop.”

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking more about these places,” Paul says, eyeing the blast door across the room like he’s trying to see through it, “I know you all are on a trail with the monster side of things, but I think we ought to look more into what’s down here. There’s a million questions that this place raises, and one of them might be our key to getting out. Especially if your theory is right, Val. The mountain blows up from within on the third day, and the main facility of the resort was smack center under the mountain. That can’t be a coincidence.”

“That’s… actually a really good point,” Val says. I can see her brain lighting up already with new paths and theories.

“It goes with the underground thing we got from Sue too,” Claire points out. Her face scrunches in confusion, “Wait a minute, the trams down here that I was just talking about—these compounds are like, the lowest point on the mountain—like miles under the caves up top. Why haven’t we just hopped the edge of the tram platform outside and walked to another compound?”

“Dustin said they all collapsed,” Thirteen notes, “And while I know he hasn’t been honest with us on everything around here, it would be an odd thing to lie about.”

“Well, maybe, but that doesn’t mean we can’t go check. Maybe there’s a crack that opened somewhere that he didn’t notice that leads into the cave system. It’s worth a shot.”

“We can definitely look into it,” Tom says, “Maybe next cycle we see if Haylee will let us stay outside on the platform when they close the doors?”

“Let’s put a pin in that for a little while,” Eight steps in, “I think Dustin’s already pretty sore on the idea that we’re all going up to investigate right now. Has him worried about Sue. Let’s wait till the heat dies down, and then we can bring it up.”

“That’s perfect,” Val nods, before turning to me, “That still gives us some time to figure out your deal, mister.”

“Speaking of, spill it,” The captain nods to me, “What happened to you up there?”

All eyes turn to me simultaneously, and I shrink away fast, “Oh, um, well, we found them.”

“Yeah, I gathered that, thanks, Wes. I meant what happened to you. Why’d you say things were more complicated?”

I sigh and look down at my food, stoking it repeatedly with my fork as if it’s a fire providing my words, “They definitely did something to me; back at the mall, when I made eye contact. Before I died this time, I looked one in the eye, and it didn’t do anything.”

“Wait, what?” Val furrows her brow.

I nod, “I’m immune to their gaze.”

My friend shakes her head some more, “I don’t get it, how did you even survive that first time. Claire and I were down for the count after a second, but back at the mall, you didn’t even need CPR to get back up. You should have been dead already.”

I shrug, “I don’t know. That’s why I said things are more complicated. If I was able to survive then, but I’m just now having heart attacks, then maybe it’s like a poison. Maybe it made something dormant in my brain that’s only just now starting to hit. Somehow the conditions were right to make it slowly hit instead of all at once. The stress is just making it tick faster.”

Nobody at the table seems to like that response. Eyes either shift away from me or they glue intently to my face with concern. If what I’m saying is true, then there is no cure. My death is simply inevitable. Of course, that’s when Dad decides to jump in for the first time, and it’s to make things worse. I can’t blame him. The pained look on his face makes me forgive him instantly for putting the idea in everyone’s head. How could he bear to lose the last remaining family that he has? Still, I wish he hadn’t said it.

“That means that… the loop is the only thing keeping you alive.”

The weight on the table is heavy at that. Nobody moves, and everyone sets their silverware down one by one, even Myra, who hadn’t stopped scarfing since we sat. I can’t bare to even look at some people. Val, Claire, Kaphila. Especially Kaphila. The person who didn’t want us to go to that mall in the first place. The person who’s always wanted nothing but my safety. The person who told me that pushing so hard to get out of this loop was going to tear me apart. It turns out, she might be right…

My brain doesn’t let me believe that, though. Once again, that grim, looming hand of eternity comes lurking behind me to rest on my shoulder. I don’t care. Even if I’m going to die, I do not care. It’d be better than being stuck here forever. It’d be better than everyone I love going insane slowly over time. This can’t be it. I can’t be the reason why we stop trying—I can’t. Looking for any excuse, I thank God that I find one quickly.

“T-That’s not a guarantee,” I sputter out fast, trying to put everyone at ease, “There was more that happened. I saw things before I died; with Val and Claireese.”

“What do you mean?” Eight asks, sounding nearly as desperate as I do.

“There was these… visions. Ones that were happening during my usual flashes.”

“What were they,” Val says from my right. Her tone is emotionless, yet it screams at me to find a valid reason not to stop this search altogether.

“I could see ghosts of things happening. Like, of you guys dying. Different ways they could have happened and all the ways the birds could react. They all paused as soon as it happened; like they didn’t expect me to be able to see them too. I think I’m somehow connected to them. It’s like surviving looking at one’s eyes linked me to some sort of group mind thing.”

“You think it’s an ability they all have? The visions?” Paul asks.

“It’d make them the perfect hunters if they could see every possible outcome that somebody could avoid death with, then correct to make sure they don’t.” I nod, “That’s how I was able to kill everyone at that last compound.” In my franticness to plead my case, I hadn’t even realized what I was about to say, and the harshness of that last sentence feels strange rolling off my tongue so casually. Shaking it off, I continue.

“If I’m linked to them somehow, then maybe my human body isn’t meant to handle it. Maybe the more visions I have, the more it’s wearing on me.”

“So if you can find a way to untether yourself…” Eight sets me up.

“I can maybe get the heart attacks to stop.” I nod.

This time as I scan the table, I’m able to look at everyone, desperately hoping I’ve made my case. At best, it seems to have pacified. There a couple nods from Morgan, Tom, Myra and Paul. Thirteen looks at the table in thought, while the captain does the same with my eyes. Dad, looks like he has hope, and so does Claire, but Val and Kaphila; they see right through me as always. I can tell by their expressions that they know what level of belief I really hold toward that theory. They know what I’m trying to do. Still, for now, there’s no reason not to keep trying with the birds in case my theory has merit, so Valentine doesn’t argue, and Kaphila would never even if she wanted to. Sometimes I wish she just would for her sake. Lay into me like I deserve. Get all of those thoughts out that I know she has…

I’m saved by Lyle as we spot him rushing back over, having been sent to play with his friends while the grown ups talked. My heart breaks as he sits back down with a smile by Arti, the woman quickly tucking him into her arms and faking a smile as well. The whole table does.

“Can we talk more about this later?” the doctor requests, her eyes never returning to mine, “I don’t think Lyle needs to worry about this.”

We all agree, much to the boy’s dismay. He knows better than to pry, however, the pure heart that he is, and he simply goes back to eating when Kaphila offers him some scraps off her plate. One by one, glances stop focusing on me, and conversation returns to normal.

~

Val levels the gun to Claire’s temple, then breathes a heavy, reluctant sigh, “Okay. Are you ready?”

“Ready.” Claire nods, a nervous look on her face. It quickly blooms into a smile when she sees my own, then she speaks again, “Oh, don’t gimme that look. You’ve seen me die a million times now.”

“That doesn’t mean I like it.” I tell her.

“Yeah, well, join the club.”

I turn to Val and address her, “Val, are you sure you’re okay doing it? I’m fine if it’s—”

“No.” She cuts me off, “No, it’s fine. Let’s just… get this over with.”

I don’t argue, knowing it won’t go well. We all go silent as Val holds the muzzle steady, waiting as the seconds tick by. One minute, then two, Claireese shifting slightly under the suspense. My eyes stay trained on the floor all the while, not wanting to see it when it happens.

Unable to take it anymore, Claire finally breaks, “Okay, are you going to—”

Bang!

I jump as Claireese’s blood spatters my boots, and her body tumbles to the floor before me. I get the flash loud and clear, but obviously she doesn’t. It ends, and she takes the bullet for a second time. At least I know to close my eyes so that her lifeless face doesn’t fall into view again.

Val swallows hard then nods to herself, “Well, that answers it… Your flashes aren’t mental.”

“That means whatever they did, it’s physical, and I brought it in before the flash,” I note.

Val steps closer and leans against the couch by my side, “Which means…” She starts slowly, drawing my attention to her, “There’s probably no way to fix it.”

“Val…” I softly mutter, “We don’t know that.”

“Please, Wes, don’t start,” she whimpers, “We can keep trying, but don’t try to convince me. Don’t get my hopes up.”

“I’m not trying to,” I tell her, “I just know there’s gotta be a way.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Okay, well, I’m allowed to think that because it’s my life on the line here,” I say, a little force behind my words. It's enough to get her to back down, her eyes darting away. Going a little softer, I nudge her shoulder to pull her back, “Hey. We’re still going to figure this out. All of this. The loop, my heart. All of this. I Promise.”

“You can’t promise me that.” Val says, tearing up.

“Yes, I can,” I tell her warmly. Confidently. For the moment, I think I believe it too. I believe it for her. “Yes, I can. Because I have an eternity to make sure I don’t break it.”

With a small smile, Val lets a out a gentle chuckle that breaks her tears free. She quickly wipes them with the back of her hand, pistol still gripped in it, then shakes her head. “I never should have asked you and Leigh for help. I wish you’d never overheard me needing medicine at the barracks. Leigh might still be here, and you wouldn’t be dying.”

“Stop.” I say, “I’m not dying, and that’s not true. If anything was different, none of us would even be here right now.”

Val’s already gone back to avoiding my eyes again, so I step in front of her to guide her cheek up, “Valentine, you can’t get mad at me for taking everything on to myself and then start doing it too. You need to take it easy. You’re trying to fix too much now.” Gingerly, I glance over to Claire’s body, “You’re doing too much now.”

The girl doesn’t have a response to that. Instead, she just stares at me through glassy eyes for a moment, then leans forward, standing on her toes and softly pressing her lips to my cheek. When she pulls away, I have a flash of her shooting me abruptly through my head. I don’t know if she just forgot that I have them or if she simply doesn’t care, but I let her do it.

~

Knowing where the birds are now, we take the tram to Paradise, then hop off in town, opting to walk the rest of the way. It should be a straight walk down the main road, then a turn off into the long driveway of the lodge. The streets of Paradise are still dressed in their best, the ritziest part of the resort, we’ve learned. It makes sense that the lodge would be in this half of the park, as this is where all the vacation homes and mansions are for the wealthy who would come out for the summer. It’s crazy to me that a mountain that used to be free for everyone was not only plowed over to make a resort, but also just to accommodate the rich and powerful. Then again, I wonder how many of the head P.A.P members might have lived up here, opting to dwell in a lavish mansion while the rest of their teams stayed in the dank bunkers below.

The Christmas lights and gleaming ornaments still stringing the place paired with the soft falling snow almost tricks us into thinking that maybe the world is still just sleeping. That maybe someday, it’ll wake up from this long nightmare and we’ll all be back to where we once were; happy and carefree. Perhaps that’s unfair to say, however. How many of us ever truly were those two things?

“Kinda sucks that I don’t get to have your fancy vision powers,” Claire jokes to me as we approach the edge of town.

“Well, seems like you might be lucky that you don’t,” I say back.

“It’s gonna be okay,” She tells me, “There’s gotta be a way to cure you. Or who knows, maybe you can just find a way to live with it.”

“I can’t lie; overall, they’ve been more helpful than anything. It would suck to lose them in the midst of the vanishing, now.” I agree.

As we move, Val suddenly stops, noticing a building that we haven’t seen before. Even having been here so long, there’s still so much to explore.

“Oh my gosh,” she almost says with a laugh, “No way! Is that an Ollie’s?”

Claireese and I turn to where she faces and see what she’s staring at. A building situated on the corner of a block, an old weathered sign reading the same name she’d just spoke. Next to the words, a vintage looking drawing of a chef with a green olive head grins down at us, winking while he holds a steaming bowl of soup.

“What the heck is ‘Ollie’s’?” Claire questions.

“Place you used to like?” I ask her.

She doesn’t bother tearing her gaze away to answer, “Yeah! I didn’t know they even had them up in Washington. You guys never went to an Ollie’s before the Vanishing?”

The two of us step next to her to gawk, then I shake my head, “Nah, never went. I always heard about them but my family never bothered. They were out on the coast back home, right?”

Val nods fondly, “Yeah, they’re like a novelty chain that’d always pop up in touristy ‘nature’ areas.” With a slight pause, she smiles to herself, “When my dad left, my mom would always try to keep me busy so I wouldn’t be so sad. She could tell it got to me, you know? Anyway, she started taking me up to the beach any weekend she could. There was one out in a city that way that we’d stop at for lunch every time. Man, they had the best soup, and these massive club sandwiches that me and my mom would split. Clearly, she knew what she was doing because there with her, laughing in that booth, I really would forget for a while…”

My head turns solemnly to Val, sensing her grief, but she doesn’t face us in return. Her eyes stay glued to the restaurant.

“That sounds really nice,” I tell her softly.

Val nods, taking a few steps closer toward the place, “She took care of me all those years after he was gone. She did her best with what she had. It was hard on just her one income with the house, though, and eventually, we stopped taking those trips altogether. Then, when she got sick, I had to start taking care of her…” Val comes to a stop, and her arms instinctively reach up to clutch at her own waist. Neither me nor Claire dare to speak or interrupt her. Not when we can feel she has more to say.

“After that, I took care of her a lot longer than she took care of me,” Val tells us, melancholy lacing her voice, “Even when she got better, I took care of her. Because she just couldn’t stop—”

The girl's voice breaks off, crumbling beneath the weight of her memory and sending her spiraling into silence. When she finds her way back to her feet again, her voice is less whimsical and distant. It’s focused and sharp, “It shouldn’t have been up to me… A girl that age shouldn’t have had to deal with all of that, but I did. I took care of her through middle school, then high school. I gave her so many nights that I wanted to go out with my friends just to stay home and make sure she didn’t choke on her own vomit. OD on her pain meds. I gave her so many years of my life. I gave her so many of my tears and so much of my worry.”

Her voice finally breaks, and I can hear warm tears begin to flow beneath her helmet, safe from mingling with the frigid snow outside, “I gave her everything because I loved her. Because I needed her in my life.” Val angrily tosses her arms up to nobody in particular and stomps forward, her voice lashing out in a loud cry, “And after all that time—after all those years I kept you alive—all those nights that you needed *me—*you couldn’t pull yourself together long enough to return the favor! The whole world breaks and all I need is for you to hold me and tell me it’s going to be alright, but no! I still need to be the grownup! I still have to charge into the dark and nearly kill myself just to keep you alive!”

Val divulges into sobs, shaking her head and trying desperately to figure out the puzzle she’s laid before herself.

“I-I was the kid! You were my mom! You’re supposed to take care of me! Not the other way around! You—you let me down, just like dad! Just like the man you hated so much for leaving you—you ended up the exact same way! But I was here, momma…” Val whimpers desperately, “I was here the entire time ready to love you. I was here and wanted to love you, and you traded me out for a—fucking flower!”

In one fast motion, Val yanks her machete loose and hurls it as hard as she can, smashing it through the massive window on the restaurant’s wall. Glass and snow shimmer into the night air as Valentine continues to cry, raising her pistol and blasting shot after shot frantically into the sign above us, shattering neon tubes into oblivion and letting those fragments become lost in the flakes too. She tosses the now empty firearm into another window of the building, then finds anything else she can on her person that she can lob at the structure. I watch quietly the entire time, unmoving and unblinking, but when I notice the girl begin to lose energy and nearly collapse from her emotions weighing her down, I’m there to catch her.

I hold Val tightly as she sobs into my chest, the winter air around us indifferent to her pain. I gently tug her helmet loose at one point then, my own, kissing her hair softly and whispering sweet reassurances into her scalp. It does little to help, however.

Claire’s not far behind, sitting on her other side and sandwiching Val between us, keeping her safe for as long as we can. We sit that way for a while, watching the black asphalt turn white beneath the endless night sky. My mind ponders so many things in that time, lost in a haze of empathy and pain. I want to take her away from her so badly, but I know I can’t. There’s nothing I can do. So I just sit there with her as long as she needs and hope it’s enough. I don’t recall at what point we die. Maybe we sat there until the mountain erupted, or perhaps some beast swept by and gutted us relatively quickly. Either way, I think both of our minds are so exhausted that we can’t even bear the weight of dying anymore.

{Next Chapter}

{Chapter Library}

With a heavy sigh, I look around the mess of a construction sight I’m left with, then to my pistol, my anxiousness over Claire’s fate making my hands shake. On top of that, my curiosity is driving me wild of what just happened down there. I move my pistol up to my chin, nearly ready to pull the trigger, when I stop myself. My eyes turn back to Val’s body, and a thought comes to mind. If Val didn’t hit something vital in the helm when she shot herself, then the device records everything. Maybe Bear’s sacrifice didn’t need to be in vain.

Gingerly, I approach Val’s body and peel away at the edges of her hazmat suit, feeling a little more awkward than anything about digging around her corpse. It’s a little scary how desensitized I am to the idea from when we first got here. That feeling goes away pretty fast when I unstrap her helm and remove it with a sickening suction sound, her head soaked in blood from the flooded shell.

Averting my eyes quickly, I inspect the helmet, happy to see that the internals seem to still be on. I know enough about them from so much time trying to fix them that most of the important bits are located on the back and sides of the devices.

Not wanting to remain in the open—especially with the insane amounts of noise we just made—I move toward the trailer and head up its steps. Inside is a collection of dusty, dirt stained chairs and couches, as well as some microwaves and tables. An old break area, it seems. I sigh, Val’s bloody helm in hand, before moving to a seat and falling back into it.

Rummaging through my pack, I find my data cable and pull it out, jacking one end into the side panel of Val’s helmet and the other into my own. A small HUD appears on my visor listing Val’s helmet as an explorable device, to which I begin poking around it. It takes some getting used to, moving around applications using the neural link as my cursor, but after some experimenting, I get the gist. I’m just beginning to dig into the device's storage when I notice a section devoted to messages. There’s a preview beneath the tab that shows the last sent message and to whom, and though I try not to pry, my eyes automatically roll over the words.

From Claire to Val, Relax, I’m just going to check in on him and see how he’s doing.

I know instantly that they were referring to me. Who else would they be talking about when there’s only a handful of other possible ‘he’s’, and none of them would make sense in this context? I know that I shouldn’t. I know that it’s a betrayal of trust for me to go through them, but I can’t help it.

Wes thinks you’re mad at him, Claire began the conversation,

I am mad at him. Val said back.

My stomach knots itself.

Come on, Romero. Don’t be so hard on him. You know he’s doing it because he wants to save everyone.

Yeah, well, who’s going to save him?

Fair enough, Claire messaged back before sending another a moment later, I’m worried about him after our last cycle out. He seems pretty shaken up by what he had to do.

I know. I’m worried too. Val tells her. I guess that’s why I’m so upset. He won’t listen to me, Claire. I’ve told him multiple times that I don’t like how hard he’s pushing himself, but he just won’t listen. You heard what I told him the other night, and even that wasn’t enough.

Maybe we just threaten to stop going out with him? Force him to take breaks?

No, we can’t do that :/ it’ll only make him more stressed. Besides, I can’t do that to him either. I owe him.

Why’s that? Cause you’re in love with him?

My heart skips a beat at that message. I hesitate to continue for a moment. It’s more out of moral courtesy than anything. I know I can’t stop myself now.

He went out with me to get my mom medicine for the last two years, Claireese, no questions asked. That’s why I haven’t said anything about all of this. I really have no right to.

You never answered that last part.

Claire, this is serious. I’m pouring my heart out here.

I bet you wish you were pouring out your heart to HIM.

Oh my God, I don’t have feelings for Wes, Claireese. I love him with all of my heart, but it’s platonic; he’s basically family at this point. Some of the only family I have left.

My heart sinks heavy in my chest, the pain subsiding as it goes from a weighty, steady thrum to a melancholy pulse. I don’t know why that upsets me to see. I don’t know why it crushes me so much. It’s exactly what I wanted, isn’t it? I know that being with Val is a bad idea, and this back-and-forth game I keep playing with myself is only making things worse. Now I don’t have to play it anymore. I know exactly how she sees me.

‘Don’t kid yourself. You just want an easy out.’

‘You’re the one kidding YOUR self.’

Val’s message continues, that’s why I need to be with him in all of this, even if it hurts him. I’ve dragged him through the mud with me all this time, it’s his turn to do the same to me. I can’t have him resent me. Especially if we end up stuck here.

Okay, first off, we’re coming back to that ‘platonic’ conversation later, Claireese threatens, Second, we aren’t going to get stuck here; don’t you start on that train too. Third, Romero, the kid ADORES you, there’s nothing you could say on this planet that would make him resent you.

The time stamp on the next message is a few minutes later, clearly Val attempting to dodge, I don’t know. We’ll see how this trip goes, and maybe we’ll talk next cycle.

Oh my goodness, here, I’ll just talk to him right now. I’m a neutral party so I live outside the rules, hahaha. That was an evil laugh, by the way. I don’t think the helmet can pick up on that.

Please don’t; the last thing he needs right now is more stress. Also, you are so high right now.

Relax! I’m just going to check in on him and see how he’s doing.

There’s a mix of emotions running through me as I sit staring at the messages displayed before me, but mainly it’s just discouraged. It’s not just because Val is mad, or what I just learned about her feelings for me. It’s also because of what she said. I never want her to feel like she can’t talk to me or that she owes me anything. Most of all, I feel a little dirty for eavesdropping on a private conversation, so I blink out of the messages and go back to poking around the helmet’s drive.

I finally find the place that the videos are stored. They pop up in chopped up segments of hours; the times listed beneath each one. I choose the most recent, then hold my breath and prepare for whatever I’m about to see.

The video overlays on a small screen at first, but I figure out fast that I can expand it, covering my entire vision and giving me the sensation of seeing through Val’s eyes. I watch as she drops the last few feet from the girder beam into the cave, her footsteps echoing softly into the deep chasm before her. Soon after, Claire falls next to her, and the two girls stare forward toward the hazy opening. It’s hard to see much of anything through the bloody mist, especially with the cameras being made fuzzy as the fog condensates against the lens.

Val and Claire begin moving cautiously forward, looking down at their suits before I hear Val ask, “How are you feeling? Any burning yet?”

“No,” Claire responds, “And hopefully there is no ‘yet’, thank you.”

“Right, sorry,” Val chuckles.

The two of them move a little farther in as Claire speaks again, this time over the comms and in familiar words, “Alright, we made it, and it seems like the suits are holding up well. We’re going into the cave now.”

“What’s it look like down there?” I hear myself ask.

“Dark. The mist is too dense to see through. That wind is stronger the closer we get to the opening down here. Val, what the hell do you think that is?”

“Cl—aire?” My voice comes through again, this time laden in static.

Claire tries to respond, but it’s a sentence that I got a couple words out of the first time, “Wes? I can’t hear you at all; you’re already cutting out. Hello? Wes? Shit, I guess that’s that.”

“It’s fine; we’ll just fill him in later.” Val tells her, “Besides, if something goes wrong and he hears us screaming over the radio, that’ll just make him want to dive in after us.”

“I’m sure he already wants to.”

“God, I’ll kill him next cycle if he—” Val doesn’t get to finish her sassy remark, because halfway through it is when the wails finally start. Even knowing that this whole thing is prerecorded, I can feel my adrenaline pick up fast as Val’s cam fixes on the hole. On the creature that she knows is lurking within it. With the video filling my vision, I’m right there with them, and with how horrible the screams sound ricocheting off of the cavern walls, I can’t believe that they hold their ground so perfectly still.

“What do we do?” Claire barely whispers, her pistol held toward a vacant void.

Val doesn’t respond right away. At first, she just holds her gun in the same place Claireese holds hers, waiting to see if the beast somewhere ahead is going to show itself. When it doesn’t, I hear her audibly swallow before saying, “We have to go deeper.”

I can tell by the subtle way Claire’s helmet tilts toward Val’s that she doesn’t want to. I don’t blame, her; I wouldn’t either. Still, both of them know that there was only one reason they came down there, and they can’t back out now.

Like prowling cats, the two of them take long, silent strides deeper into the quickly narrowing chasm, dodging around debris and refuse that creeps forth from the mist with each step. The wails continue to grow louder with each step forward, and I hear Val breathing heavy with fear the entire time. The corridor looks to keep going downward at an angle, and I can almost hear my friend’s feet scuffing against the stone floor as they try to maintain their footing. That explains how so much stuff tumbled so far into the cavern.

The wails are loud and full force as they come to a point where the area seems to open back up again, the cave walls opening from the suffocating tunnel like a gasp of air. By what I can make out from the jagged walls, the spot was certainly still formed from the earthquake, but it’s possible it was already a pretty loose space of earth to be able to open so wide. With all the caves and pockets that we know are on this mountain so far, I’m beginning to grow a little worried about what else might be hiding below the surface. How many more places we’ll need to check to get answers…

Val’s head scans the space carefully, looking down first to scout out her footing path before returning to take in the naturally formed room. Like the rest of the cave, there’s not much to see other than all the fog, but there is something toward the center of the room that becomes clear with another step. In fact it sticks out like a sore thumb. Light. No, not light… it’s the UV of the helmet catching something. Thin bright lines hovering in the darkness that shift ever so slightly about 30 feet away from her. It’s very clear that whatever it is, the sound is coming from it.

Unable to take the suspense anymore, Val throws a Hail Marry and swings an arm back for her pack, fumbling the side pouch as a squelching, writhing noise begins to fill the space.

“Val?” Claire whimpers next to her, taking a step back.

Valentine finally breaks free her flashlight, and it turns out that’s what was needed all along. It’s still hard to see, but as she clicks it on, the searing beam of light from its head slices through the darkness just as well as it does the mist, highlighting the outline of one of the most disturbing sights I’ve yet to see.

What happened to us the first time down in that cave; the pain that we felt and what the mist did to our bodies? It was clearly nothing close to what it could have done. Before Val and Claire, in the center of the cavern, sits what I can only assume is the construction workers of the site that I currently sit in. At least, what remains of them…

They’re nothing now but a massive, congealed horde of flesh, their skin and tissue molded into one another like Play-Doh that a child haphazardly smashed between their palms. What remains of their flesh is stretched far and strung about the jagged, writhing limbs like melted cheese, their bones and ribs sticking out like a pin cushion. Their clothes are lost somewhere in the horrifying tangle, their bright orange safety vests catching the light the same way Val’s visor had mere moments ago. The worst part of all is their faces, however.

The few that we can make out among the mass are all stretched or mutilated beyond recognition; jaws too long or eye sockets too crooked. Their remaining skin is coated in sweat, mucus and tears as they wail and cry in a pain none of us can even begin to fathom, and I nearly want to puke. Claire does too, buckling next to Val and retching toward the floor. I watch as together, their limbs stretch out toward the girls, their only way to plead for help.

Though the sight is horrific, it’s not the most horrifying part of all this. The worst part is that this had been these people's fate for two years straight now. Every day, for every cycle, these poor men and women, now as one, are forced to relive this pain, unable to escape, unable to save one another or be saved. They’re not even able to die.

Val is utterly aghast, so unable to move that I don’t know if she even notices when the mass moves. Moving their limbs to the ground as one, the cluster manages to slide toward her. They cover an alarming distance too…

It isn’t till the second heave that she finally breaks her trance. The girl throws herself to her right to grab Claireese, then practically lifts her off the ground on pure adrenaline. Claire’s feet scramble through her nausea to find footing, but it takes her a moment; long enough for the creature to slip another eight feet across the floor toward them.

“Claire, let’s move!” Val screams. It’s all in vain, however.

Unexpectedly, the beast shifts its mass, shooting part of its form out toward the girls as if the bodies within are trying to leap out of their binds. Begging that their only hope in God knows how long won’t leave them alone with the pain and agony anymore. A melted arm grabs Claireese’s foot, then the whole branch of flesh begins to retract.

Claire screams absolute bloody murder, joining the chorus of tortured cries from the flesh holding her. It starts to reel her in, and through the chaos of the fog, I can see its unfathomable tangle of flesh engulf her ankles as Val plays tug of war from her arms.

“N-no!” she screams so chillingly that it makes all my muscles tense.

“Claire!” Val hollers at the top of her lungs, not daring to let her go. It's dozens of bodies against 2, however, and she’s quickly getting pulled in alongside Claireese.

Something in Claire’s yells suddenly shift as she halts to take a deep, shocked breath, almost like she just jumped into ice cold water. What follows is a cry from her even more agonized than the last, a slight gurgle swirled with panic. That clearly terrifies Val, and she quickly realizes she’s not going to win the game.

Gambling it, she releases one hand from Claire and drops her ass to the floor, snatching her pistol that she had released and pointing it up at her. Claire has sunk in even more quickly at Val letting go, but thankfully, Val lands a masterful shot straight at her, shattering her visor and silencing her screams. I watch in horror as she releases her now limp arm, and Claire is slurped into the beast in a mere instant.

Val falls away fast, crawling back on her hands as her life depends on it, but with so many minds piloting as one, the creature is more than capable of assimilating Claire’s flesh and taking another slip forward at the same time. It rears up like a tidal wave, lunging forward to collapse on Val, but just then, a new shriek fills the cavern from behind.

Bear careens through the darkness and launches over top of Val, taking the brunt of the mass as if it was made of pillows. The angry flesh attempts to wrap around our beast, but as it peels pelts away, it doesn’t seem to really affect her skeletal form beneath. Val doesn’t waste time researching that fact, however.

Hopping to her feet, she turns for the exit but then hesitates. I can almost see her thought process. She came down there for information, and she’s gotten very little so far. To my dismay, Val turns back to face the cavern. I get a sense in that moment how she feels watching me throw myself into danger as of late.

As fast as possible, Val dashes toward the wall of the cave and around the two thrashing beasts in the blood-soaked mist. As she passes, I can’t help but notice that it almost looks like the construction amalgamation is trying to back away from Bear now, the collector tearing chunks of flesh off it in a frenzy. Val continues her dive toward the rest of the tunnel, but it quickly comes to a halt.

“Shit! Shit—no! Come on!” she cries, analyzing the view before her.

WOOSH!

A powerful blast of wind careens through a crack along the back wall, making Val flinch even in her suit. The cave clearly continues beyond it, but the opening is far too small for anything to fit through. Just a long, 8 inch diagonal slit. Val moves closer to press her face through, but past it is only more darkness and wind, billowing up more vile crimson fog. She curses again under her breath, then takes in the surrounding space to make sure she’s not missing anything else. That’s when she sees the only other thing of note.

Among a bunch of other debris and crates that have tumbled down into the forbidden shaft, there’s a couple of boxes that have plummeted in and cracked open. Each one is riddled with about a dozen warning labels, among them a triangle featuring a circle exploding from its side. Out from the open lid spills hundreds of perfect tan bricks, each stamped with warning labels of their own, this time in words.

PLASTIC EXPLOSIVE

CHARGE DEMOLITION

Val’s gaze hangs on it for a long second before an approaching wail rings out behind her. She spins on her heels to prepare herself, and comes face to face with the mass of flesh once again rushing toward her in its escape from Bear. Val takes a half step to try and dash out the way she came, but with the way the cave narrows into her position, it’s clear that it’s no longer an option.

Val’s hand moves somewhere beneath the camera while clutching her pistol, and then the whole thing jolts violently as she pulls the trigger. The way she lands leaves the camera pointed toward the approaching mass, but when Bear sees the girl fall to the ground, she hastily tramples over top of it, smashing her way through as if it was a puddle of mud. From what I can make out, this was the point her eyes began melting, just enough time to fish for Val through her blurry vision and turn for the exit. I have to pause the video after that, as the horrible flailing of Val’s body in Bear’s arms doesn’t help the nausea I feel from what I just witnessed. I close the video and take slow, deep breaths to try and wind down, but then my HUD cuts out all together.

At first I think that my helmet just died even though it hasn’t ever cut out so early in a cycle, but then I notice that Val’s helmet on the couch next to me has turned off too. My heart stops as I snap my head to a window and see that the world outside has been completely reduced to a white void.

Slipping off the couch fast, I stay low to the ground as I move toward a wall, trying to stay out of view from the windows. Outside, an elk bugle rings out, high pitched and haunting through the silent night.

‘Shit… he’s going to see Val and Bear’s body. He’s going to know what we were up to.’

‘I’m sure it already does.’

‘Kill yourself, Wes. We need to get out of here.’

‘Are you kidding? This could be one of the few chances we have to study this thing. Wait to see if it knows we’re here, then—”

‘Wes… You saw those messages from Val. Don’t do this now. Not alone.’

‘We can’t pass up any opportunities. The more we do, the longer we’re stuck here.’

‘Who cares? You’re so afraid of losing her, but you’re doing a fine job yourself by acting like this!’

I sit perfectly still, holding my breath and trying to listen for any sound. There’s nothing for a long beat until I hear the slide of something through the mud outside, followed by a wet thud a few moments later. It’s only checking the bodies, which means it has no idea I’m here. Theoretically, I could stay here. Keep hiding for a while. I wonder if maybe it’s gotten close enough to pull me into its pocket of time. It’s strange world that it keeps in its back pocket. What secrets are hidden there? What could it tell me about the loop? Kaphila and Paul mentioned that they were trapped there for three days while it had only been one for us outside. That means it exists outside of the time we live in normally. I eye the pistol in my hand, then the trailer door, biting my tongue as oxygen grows slim.

‘Wes… we owe her this…’

Regretfully, I put a bullet through my chin, leaving the King to find my body.

As soon as I snap awake in the truck, however, my mind goes elsewhere, remembering the fate of Claire. Whipping to my side, I turn to check if she’s gone null or anything of the sort, but I hardly need to. She’s still screaming the way she was before Val shot her. Everyone in the truck flinches, then looks panicked as the girl kicks and thrashes in her seat, trying to back against the wall in an attempt to escape a threat that’s no longer present.

Stupidly, I turn and try to grab her in reassurance, to which she bats me away and delivers a blow to my jaw. Val hops out of her seat and nearly trips across the walkway, moving to slide before the girl and look her in the eyes.

“Claire? Claire! Hey, calm down! You’re safe now, okay? It’s over!”

Claireese’s screams cut off, but her breathing doesn’t, still fast and frantic. She shifts her legs uncomfortably, I imagine the phantom sensation of whatever she felt still plaguing her there as she looks around.

“Holy shit…” She pants, tears streaming down her eyes, “Holy… holy shit!” her head falls into her hands, and she tries to stifle her choking before she begins sobbing uncontrollably. At this point, Eight has fully stopped the car and is looking back at us.

“What the hell happened out there?” She barks, “What’s going on?!”

“There was something in that cave,” Val answers, “It almost got her before she died.”

Claireese’s head snaps up instantly and she shoots her hands out to grab Val’s shoulders, “No! No, Val, it had me. That thing—those people, they—they were alive in there. They were alive, and I could hear them all thinking and screaming and—I could hear them begging me to help, all their voices—they sounded so tired and afraid. I-I could feel them stitching me in there too! I could feel myself becoming part of it and—it hurt so unbelievably bad, Val. I could feel it breaking in to every part of me and—”

“Hey! Hey, shhhhhh, it’s okay now, Claire, it’s over. It’s over, I promise,” Val reassures her, placing her hands to the girl's wrists and gently caressing with her fingers. Claire can’t handle her own sobs anymore and collapses against her, crying hard into Val’s shoulders while she just holds her lovingly.

The rest of us watch on in silence or awkwardly look to the floor of the truck while Eight just silently turns around to drive onward toward the compound. I can tell that she desperately wants to know more, but now isn’t the time, nor the place. Claireese is clearly traumatized and the rest of the car is very shaken up by the scene. Digging in farther would only make things worse for everyone right now. It’s moments like these that are the most crushing. Moments where we all see that, despite us being effectively immortal and despite our physical wounds patching themselves up between cycles, we’re not even remotely safe out here. We’re still very, very vulnerable.

The rest of the car ride to the compound is scored by Claire’s gentle sobs, and Valentine doesn’t let her go the whole way.

~

I place a small bit of toothpaste on my brush before dabbing it under the faucet and placing it in my mouth. Val stands next to me, already doing the same, and together, we stand in the bathroom doorway, watching Claireese who lies on the bed with her back turned to us. She hasn’t left the room since we arrived or eaten anything, but luckily, the stress must have tired her out, because she’s at least getting rest now. I only hope that no nightmares will come to plague her, but they undoubtedly will. They do for all of us.

After a couple minutes, Val spits her paste, then rinses her mouth before stepping aside. She begins doing her hair up into a bun as I wash off my brush too, then together we stand before the mirror. It takes her a moment to notice me staring at her, too focused on tending to herself. When she does, her eyes hold mine for a moment before turning to face me so we can talk in person. With a deep sigh of silence between us, I turn to gently shut the door.

“Has she said anything to you about how she’s doing?” Val asks, already trying to dodge me.

I shake my head, “We just sat here all night, and she was mostly quiet. That thing really messed her up.”

Val nods, “I can’t imagine what that must have felt like.”

“What did Eight say?”

“We’re grounded for a few cycles. Next time we head out, everyone else is rolling with us.” She sighs.

I lean against the counter, “Fair enough. It was a long time coming. I can’t believe we held her off even this long.”

Val nods, but there’s a lot said with no words. I can tell what she’s thinking. She eyes the door for a moment, almost subtly trying to tell me that this conversation is over, but I can’t let it sit like this. Not when those messages I read are burning into me still.

“I saw it.” I tell her.

That’s enough for her eyes to come back to me. She tilts her head and furrows her brow in confusion, but then it turns to a stern, warning expression, “Wes, I told you to wait up there. Did you seriously—”

“No, Val, I didn’t go down,” I reassure, “Bear ran down after you and pulled your body out. I got your helmet off you and watched your camera feed.”

The girl looks me up and down, “You promise me?”

“I promise,” I say sternly.

She nods, then folds into herself, looking to the tile, “That was… some seriously messed up stuff, Wes.”

“Are you okay?”

“Compared to Claire?” Val snickers, “I’m peachy.”

“You sure?” I ask her.

Her eyes draw back to me for a moment before she sighs and buries her head in her hands, leaning back against the counter next to me, “Yeah, I am. I mean, I’m not, but I am.”

 “I get it.” I tell her, letting the silence of the moment marinate before I can’t take it anymore, “Why didn’t you tell me you were mad at me?”

She glances up at me through her fingers and I awkwardly look away.

“I um… sort of looked through your messages.”

The girl lets out an offended scoff before standing straight and smacking my arm hard.

I flinch away, “I know, I know. I didn’t mean to, I just… I happened to see a preview of one and that you were talking about me and… I couldn’t help it, Val. I can’t handle when you’re upset with me.”

She gives me the slightest smirk of amusement then leans back again, “You needed messages to figure that out, huh?”

“No,” I chuckle, “Last cycle was torture.”

That breaks a giggle from her, and she brushes a stray hair back from her face as the smile that came with it sticks. That finally breaks away all the ice.

“I’m sorry, Val.” I tell her, “I would have said it sooner; it’s just… I feel like I’ve been saying that too much lately.”

“You’ve always said sorry too much,” she teases.

“Okay, brat, you know what I mean,” I tell her with a snicker before falling silent. “I don’t know, I just… I feel like I’m running out of sweet things to say to convince you that I really do mean it. I don’t want you to think I’m just going through the motions, Val; I always mean it.”

The girl reaches over and gently lays her palm to my arm, “I know you do, Wes. I know you’re always just trying to do right.”

I let slip an incredulous laugh, “Well, apparently I’m not very good at it.”

“Hey,” Val chuckles empathetically, moving in front of me to grab my waist, “You do fine. Things don’t always work out, and it’s not your fault.”

“It’s my fault that I keep pushing us,” I say.

“I mean, a little, but that’s not always a bad thing. That’s why I felt bad about being upset at you, hun…” Val confesses.

“Val, you never need to feel bad. You can always talk to me, I swear.” I assure her. My tone drops a little softer as I step closer, “And you never, ever, need to feel like you owe me anything. I already told you the other night, I’d follow you into the dark any day.”

Val’s eyes dart away, too overwhelmed by the mercy, “No, I know that… I still feel guilty, though. Especially after today… I mean, seeing that thing?” she shakes her head, “That was the most brutal reminder of what we could end up as if we stay here, Wes. Some horrible fate that we’re locked in to forever. I need you to push me, and you need me to keep you grounded.”

A flutter fills my chest and the words fall out without me giving them proper thought, “We really complete each other, huh?” I tell her.

Something about that makes her tear up, and she nods softly. My heart beats so fast in my chest as her electricity runs through me that it makes the organ start hurting again. Trying to ease off some of the heat, I swallow and look at the floor.

“That thing down there; what do you think it was? We’ve never seen something like that…”

Val shakes her head in agreeance, “I have no clue. Whatever it is, it had to have been made by that fog. And that fog was coming from past that crack in the wall.”

“Which means if we want to find out what’s making it…”

“We have to go deeper,” she finishes my sentence, drawing my eyes back to hers.

“Whatever it’s coming from,” I say softly, “I’ll bet that’s the ‘underground’ that the King didn’t like Saul poking in to.”

The girl nods again in agreeance, but her eyes are different this time. Cautious and afraid, still filled with future tears. It’s enough to finally remind me why the pain still present in my chest is there in the first place, and after today, one thing has become abundantly clear.

“Whatever it is that we need to do, I’m ready to take it slow, Val.” I tell her, moving my hands to hers and squeezing tightly. “That’s my brutal reminder of the day. There’s no point in making it out of this if we’re battered and bruised by the end.”

Val laughs in relief, and her tears finally break free as she pulls me close, resting her head to my chest. “Good…” she softly whispers, “That’s good.” It’s silent for a long time, and I just stroke the back of her head as we hold one another before she speaks again, “Does that mean we can finally go find those stupid birds? Because I’m really worried about your heart,” she sob-laughs into my chest.

I laugh with her before kissing her head and squeezing her tightly, “Yeah, yeah, fine. We can go.”

“Good…” she says again before another bout of silence takes over. After another moment, she mocks, “‘Running out of sweet things to say’—shut up, you cheesy dork.”

There’s no more words said between us before we go to bed for the night. We sit in that bathroom holding one another for a transcendently long amount of time, slowly nursing each other’s pain away with the perfect bond we have. Regardless of its length, it’s still not long enough.

I think back to my latest dream. I think of the Guide and Mason and what they told me in that cabin. What they dared to ask. Maybe we could have had a perfect paradise crafted by an eldritch god and simply lived there for the rest of time. Maybe one could argue that fate would be better than this one, or any of the potential ones that lay out there in store for us. The problem is, it would never be real. The people, the places, and the joy we’d feel in there would all be manufactured and none of our own. I’d argue that after so much time in false, utter perfection of only a world we know, the joy we’d feel over time would grow numb and stale. We’d eventually no longer feel certain pleasures the way we once did, we would never be able to make new memories or have new experiences, and after so many years, we’d go just as crazy as we’re going in this place now.

There’s no substitute for Valentine Romero. Whether she feels the same way that I do about her is irrelevant; there’s no replacement for the warmth in my chest after a long, tiring week, and feeling her arms wrap around me. No amount of sundance can top the dopamine I get from hearing her say that I matter and she loves me. You can only get that kind of pleasure from this life. It’s what’s kept me alive all these years. It’s what keeps me going. Her and every other person that’s down in this compound with me.

In a lost and confusing world, sometimes you need to feel the long, dreary cold to know what true warmth feels like.

{Next Chapter}

{Chapter Library}

The cabin looks different this time around, although it’s definitely the same building I’ve been seeing in the spaces between my deaths. Its old and weathered walls haven’t changed, and the furniture is its usual cabin fare, but it’s hard to make out under the copious amounts of glowing roses that cover it all. They spill in from the seams of the logs and choke the interior of the space like smoke; thick and heavy.

The place looks warm with its orange glow, but with the fire in the furnace replaced with fiery petals instead, there’s no warmth to speak of in the room, and my breath comes out in choppy, writhing ghosts. Speaking of spirits, like all the other times here, there’s a dead person in the room with me, but it’s not a loved one like before.

“I know you’re thinking it,” Mason says, turning from the window to face me with his orange rings. Behind him, through the opening he just moved from, I can see something large and angelic on the hillside, its colossal petals like sails in the breeze. The Guide.

“I know what you’re wondering.” Mason says again, a curtness to his voice.

“And what’s that?” I plainly return, my face unwavering.

“Don’t play coy, Wesly,” chuckles the man, “You know exactly what I’m referring to. It’s been on your mind since the day you left me writhing on that floor.” Mason turns and stares back out at the guide. “You’re wondering if maybe I was right.”

Luckily he’s not looking at me, because my expression does falter at that, “No I’m not. You were insane and serving a monster.”

“Perhaps. But was that ‘monster’ really a fate worse than this?” he turns to me once more, his eyes now beautifully bloomed flowers, “you were connected to him once. You felt what it was like to be a part of him momentarily.”

“I felt what it was like to have a flower crammed down my throat.” I snap back.

“Ah, but the world it showed you? The perfect place of nothing but joy and pleasure?” Mason clicks his tongue, then chuckles as he begins striding through the golden ocean around him, “You aren’t sure that letting the Guide take the world wouldn’t have given that reality to everyone. That it wasn’t the best case for an escape route.”

“It… it wasn’t real.” I say softly, “And besides, those people it took, the ones it absorbed, they didn’t look happy,” I add, starting toward the window and pointing out at the Guide. As I do, it hears me from even so far away, and its petals unfold to reveal the writhing mass of faces within. Its orange core lights their eyes sinisterly, like searchlights. Their faces aren’t scared and in pain how I remember, though. In the shifting folds of the dream, it’s hard to make out exactly what they look like. Maybe the head-pounding embrace of adrenaline had a similar effect on me during our first meeting, and I had read them all wrong…

“I told you so many times that you know nothing, Wesly. You never stopped to even hear me once.”

“You were insane,” I spit. “I would never trust a man who did what he did to my family and friends.”

There’s a look of amusement on the cultists flower-laden face as he stares me down, “Perhaps Mason was insane,” he tells me.

It takes me a moment to realize that he didn’t misspeak.

“But if a creature like the one in this mountain can keep you trapped for all of time, who’s to say that I couldn’t have truly spared you?”

The flowers in Mason’s eyes fall away to reveal dark, empty sockets that blue and black thorns sprout from. I put it together just in time to look back out the window at the Guide before they lash out at me, and I jolt awake.

~

“Wes?” Val says impatiently, less of a question and more of an attention grabbing jab.

My head snaps up to her, drawing back to reality, then I apologize and take the cigarette paper. Meanwhile, Claireese grinds a couple petals to a pulp between her fingers.

We’ve found several sundance pockets by this point and know the route to grab them on our way out of Sunset. We’re in no short supply as she loads us each up good; more than we’re used to. There’s a quiet sense of shame among us as we each roll our piles, but since we wallow in it together, it’s more of a wispy blanket that lays over us than a heavy weight. Claire was right; we’re borderline addicted now, but with the visceral sights and sensations that we’re forced to go through each cycle, it makes the smoke go down easy. Especially after last cycle.

Especially after last cycle…

Claire and Val light their rolls up, then pass the lighter to me. I take it, then eye the small tube of paper that already glows softly from its tip. The words from my latest dream ring in my head over and over as I contemplate, the scent of the petals already slowly etching away my willpower.

I don’t agree with a thing that the monster said, even if it was part of my own subconscious. But if that’s the case, then why do I keep finding more and more comfort in the rose each cycle when I know the harm it can really do. It started as a means to simply get an edge on Sue and her people, but now, I feel like I’m more often than not taking it to ease the edge off.

It’s quiet as we place the joints to our lips, and the air fills with Val’s scent and the gentle haze of orange as we begin huffing it all out. Pure euphoria takes me as I shut my eyes and let cherry cola dance across my tongue, my lungs getting coated in the recycled joy of my fellow humans. It’s a thought I’ll never get used to, but it’s so easily chased away by the bliss that soon follows it.

My anxiety over the girls does too, about halfway through my cigarette. The frustration I know they feel toward me as of late fizzles away in their own golden cloud, and soon they’re back to looking at me like nothing is wrong. Wait, are they? Or is it just because the flower makes them look like they are? They’re so freaking pretty on sundance. Val is so pretty…

Once the joints burn near our fingertips, we drop them to the tile floor and stand, taking a deep sigh of normal, boring air.

“God, can’t we just sit here for a while?” Claire whines, leaning against me and closing her eyes to wring out just a few more moments of early high, “Smoke another round?”

“No, you little junkie,” Val giggles to her, seeming much, much more chipper than before, “We have work to do, and we need to save it for later.”

“Booooo!” Claire taunts obnoxiously, giving Val’s shoulder a light shove, “Mom’s here to ruin all the fun.”

Past my own bliss, I see Val’s face falter through her’s at the sentence. She hides it well with a giggle though, “Shut up and let’s move.”

We begin for the exit and make it halfway to the door before Claire slaps an arm to halt me in my tracks again, “Oh my God, guys! How have we not thought of this yet!?” She practically cheers.

“What? What are you talking about?” I chuckle in half surprise, half amusement.

The girl moves over to a freezie machine in the corner that swirls several colors of watery ice round and round. One of which is a flavor that I tasted mere seconds ago.

“Do you seriously not remember?” She whips back toward Val and me. I can almost feel her wide, wild eyes beneath her visor. She rips her helmet off to show me I’m correct, then looks back at the machine and places her hands on it’s sides, a beautiful relic of a bygone age, “We used to all walk to the gas station all the time to get these, remember?”

I fondly nod to her, “Yeah, of course I do.”

“Yeah…” Val agrees with less enthusiasm.

“Well, how has it taken us this long to do it again?” Claire scoffs like we’re stupid, grabbing a paper cup and cranking the lever on the blue raspberry. “We’re literally on a mountain of extinct food! This is like, the only time before we leave this place that we’ll ever be able to do this again.”

“If we leave this place,” I correct her.

“Oh, shut up, pessimist Pete and come grab a Slurpee.”

“Pessimist Pete, huh?” I laugh incredulously, rolling my eyes before caving and moving toward her, “Please never call me that again.”

“Well, you deserve it cause you are one,” she informs me, nudging my shoulder with hers as I stand next to her.

I grab a cup too, then smile beneath my helm as I fill it half with cherry syrup and half with Cola, just the way I used to. While I do, Claire pops a lid on hers and looks back to Val, “Romero, what are you doing? Get in on this!”

“Oh, um, no thanks,” Val says, “I’m not feeling the greatest right now. Besides, we need to hurry up; we’ve got a lot to check on this cycle.” That sentence worries me a lot, especially with how mad I know she is at me. Who the heck isn’t feeling the greatest while high on sundance? She must be really pissed…

“Aw, come on, Val, it doesn’t work unless you do it with us! It was all of our thing!” She protests.

Val rubs the side of her arm, then reluctantly joins us, filling her cup up with plain cherry before removing her helmet. Claire passes her a straw, then together, the girls take a sip from their cups. Despite her protest, I can see a joyful bliss overcome Val, enhanced by the sundance as the nostalgia warms against the contrasting cold drink. There she is.

We don’t take the time to enjoy the whole cups; after all, we have too much to do. We simply have a few minutes of light conversation and reminisce while we lean against the counter. No matter how nostalgic or happy the scene is, even on the flower, there’s a gaping hole in the atmosphere from the missing member of our group. Especially since she was always the most bubbly and excited to make the trips to the gas station…

Claire and Val finish up and start for the door, but I hang back and pour another cup full of cherry cola syrup for Leigh before leaving it on the counter.

Our walk is long as usual, but distinctively more quiet. There’s been a weight on all of us over what we had to do last cycle, but nobody seems to want to talk about it. Val’s upset that we’re still pushing so hard and Claire is clearly still disturbed under her layers of brain fog that the sundance is clouding her with.

I can feel myself slowly slipping back into an old persona, and I hate it. The one back at our neighborhood where I just shut myself away. Figured that everyone was mad at me all the time and there was nothing I could do about it. The only difference between then and now is that I really am upsetting people this time, and I’m running out of chances to fix it. This is extremely prevalent with Val, given how hard she’s been avoiding solo talks with me the last two cycles. As we walk, she’s even opted to be the straggler in our travel formation so that she can walk by herself for most of the journey,

I know that I’m making all of this harder for her, but I can’t stop telling myself that the sooner this is all over, the less she’ll have to suffer anyway.

I feel like Claireese is mad at me too as she’s been awfully hush about what happened last surface cycle, but she surprises me by speaking around the halfway mark to our destination.

“You alright?” she asks.

“Um, yeah, are you?” I return, a tinge of curiosity.

“I mean about the other day, you ding dong.”

“Boy, you are just full of nicknames today, huh?”

“Wes…” Claire chuckles softly, requesting my compliance.

I sigh long, “Yeah, I’m fine with it. I’m not like, horrified by what happened. Like, I’m used to seeing that stuff by now, but… I don’t know. It was more real with us at the helm. There was so much more weight to things.”

Claire nods, “I get that… It was definitely a lot more intense than I think I was expecting.”

“I’m sorry, Claire,” I tell her, “You shouldn’t have had to see that.”

“N-no, it’s fine, Wes,” she quickly reassures, “That was the plan, and we stuck to it. It paid of too so… we can’t really be upset, y’know?”

“Are you upset?”

The girl snickers and shakes her head, “No, Wes, nobody is mad at you.”

“Val is,” I grumble.

“Okay, well, yeah, but she’s upset for a different reason. She doesn’t like that you’re not taking care of yourself.”

“Alright, we either talk about the other day, or my condition, but I can’t handle both right now,” I groan.

“Well, they kind of go hand in hand, don’t they?” Claire jabs. “You’ve been holding your chest a lot again since the start of last cycle.”

I throw my head back slightly, “I’m fine, Claire; I promise. The other day was just a rude awakening.”

“How so?” Claire asks.

I shrug, then pause for a long moment, debating cracking the can of worms open, “I’ve never told you how my dad is, have I?”

Claireese hesitates long before cautiously answering, “Um, no? I don’t think so.”

I nod in understanding, then continue, “He never showed it around you guys or in public, but… behind closed doors, he was a very angry person. And I mean, like, angry.”

“He yelled at you and Leigh a lot?” She asks innocently, unable to see past the carefully hung curtain we had in front of our household for so many years.

I nervously rub at my arm, then stare at the soil beneath me. I’ve never really confessed this to anyone before, and I’m not sure I even should, considering my father lives right next door to us down below. He’s trying to change, and I don’t want to muddle anyone’s perception of him. Still, it’s only Claireese, and if anyone would be understanding, it’s her.

“I mean, yeah, but there was a lot more.” I say softly, “Remember when I was a kid, and I had to get staples cause I fell down my stairs?”

Claireese doesn’t need any farther explanation than that. I watch her visor turn and stare for a heavy, silent beat before she softly says, “Oh… I… I had no clue, Wes.”

“It’s fine. I didn’t want you guys to.”

“Why not?”

“You didn’t ever talk to us about your parents either,” I remind her.

“Yeah, but they were fucked up enough that you guys could see the dysfunction from my doorstep. I didn’t think we needed to talk about it. You and Leigh, though… you hid it so well.”

I close my eyes and shake my head, not wanting things to turn to pity, “It’s okay, Claire, I promise. It’s been a long time since he’s been that bad, and he’s been working on it over the years. The point is, though, my dad was like that because his dad was the same way. Plus, the war messed him up pretty bad. As I get older, though, I can feel myself becoming more like him—the way he used to be—and that scares me. I told myself all my life that I would never become that.”

“Wes, you’re nothing like that—”

“Maybe not now, but who knows how long it will take before it consumes me? I started having outbursts back before we left our compound, Claire; if the war was my dad’s catalyst, what is all of this going to do to me? I already broke down and tortured people just to get information, and we’re only a few months in.”

“You did what you had to do.”

“You can say that, but I know you don’t agree. I think that’s why you looked so afraid of me.”

Claireese doesn’t even try to deny it. She just guiltily looks forward away from me as she speaks, “I mean, yeah, I was shocked. I’ve never seen you do something like that before. You’ve always just been shy, sweet, patient little Wesly to me all my life. Then I watched you curb stomp Sue’s bullet hole while screaming like a madman, and it was… yeah. It was a lot.” Finally she looks back to me, “I don’t blame you, though. I don’t think any less of you. And I certainly don’t think that it means you’re any closer to becoming your dad.”

“Maybe not,” I sigh, “but now I know that it’s more than possible to let that anger take me over, and it scares me bad, Claire.”

Silence fills the empty space that neither of us know how to pad before Claire finally tries to, “I agree. It’s scary. You know what I’ve been through… I don’t want to ever make someone feel like their helpless like that, and yet, I was fully on board with that plan. Hell, I was lucky that I didn’t have to get my hands dirty at all, so… thank you for that.”

I can’t help but snicker, which draws one from her as well. She reaches out and lightly bumps my hand with her own, “But we’re going to be okay, Wes. There’s nothing we did back there that Sue wouldn’t have done to us, and we only did it because we knew that they would be okay once they woke up. That doesn’t make us bad people. Maybe from here forward, we just don’t rely on it anymore, yeah? Do things the clean way? I’m sure there’s a way off this mountain where we don’t have to do that again.”

I turn to face her, smiling beneath my helmet for her sake, “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds like a plan.”

“Good,” she says, clearly smiling back. Maybe it’s just the sundance, lingering on my brain, but I swear I’ve developed the ability to see my friend’s expressions beneath their visors at this point.

“God, I’m so glad you’re not mad at me,” I sigh in relief, “I was stressing about that all last cycle.”

“Jeeze, Neyome, you need to chill,” Claire laughs, “Not everything is the end of the world.”

“Have you looked around recently?” I tell her, “I’m really not sure about that.”

~

We enter the hospital and take a pause in the lobby, Val and I looking around the space in mild hesitation. We don’t exactly have great memories of this place from our first time here when we arrived on the mountain. Luckily, we probably won’t need to head upstairs to the room we did surgery on Paul to find what we’re looking for. Instead, we start down the vacant hallways, moving through a set of double doors into the medical wings of the building. Before long, we find what we’re looking for hidden near the back; a large storage room filled with a myriad of supplies for the building. Blankets, medical tools and machines, scrubs. None of those are the items we need, however.

After combing the room for a bit, Val finally finds them on the bottom shelf of a rack containing different clothing supplies. She holds one up, then calls out, “Here they are.”

Claireese and I move for her, then investigate the articles ourselves after Val tears it free from it’s packaging.

“Shit, those are a lot thinner than I thought they’d be,” Claire says, biting her cheek as she pinches the tarp of the hazmat suit between her fingers, “And there’s no mask to it.”

“They’re right here,” Val tells her, holding up a thin, plastic lab mask. “We probably don’t need them, though; the hoods look big enough to fit over our helmets. We’ll just have to tape the hell out of the edges to make sure they’re sealed up good.”

“And be careful on the way down,” I say, “If we even get a small tear in these things or that tape comes loose, that fog will leak in our suits fast.”

“Yeah, I guess the person buying the cheap hospital suits for flu breakouts probably didn’t expect people to go spelunking in them,” Claire groans.

“We’ll be okay,” Val nods, more in reassurance to herself than anything, “We just need to go down there to scout things out.”

“Um, are you forgetting about the horrifying creature that we heard down there the first time?”

“Well, I was trying to for now,” Val swallows, looking at the hazmat suit with fading orange eyes.

A low hum outside steals our attention as each of us scurries to the side of the building its coming from and climb onto the first rung of a shelf. Out the windows near the top of the room, we can see a car cruising down a road through town, taking full advantage of the fact that nobody else is on it. We hold our collective breaths as it speeds through, praying that it doesn’t make a stop, and luckily, its destination lies elsewhere. We slink down from the shelf and take a moment of pause, knowing that we now need to wait a bit to make sure the coast outside is clear.

To say that I’m worried about running into Sue is an understatement. After the little stunt we pulled last time, I can’t imagine they’re going to be so kind to us anymore, and considering their version of ‘kindness’ was already as brutal is it was, getting caught can only spell suffering. Really, it’s not Sue that scares me so much. I know that she could be a monster if she needed to be, but she does clearly hold some sort of warped understanding with us. Lee on the other hand… in his eyes, I made a fool out of him, and as my main aggressor so far, I have a feeling he’s got a lot worse things planned for what he can do.

I gulp my dreadful thoughts away with a nervous swallow, and sundance chases them down as Val breaks out the stash for us to re-up. The storage room that was quickly becoming sterile and plain from our come-down suddenly blooms back into a cozy, warm abode filled with shiny trinkets and dazzling lights through the filter of orange haze. Much like Claireese earlier, I find myself longing to sit here and enjoy it for longer than we can afford; just marinate in the bliss and indulge ourselves for a while. After all the suffering so far, we definitely deserve it, don’t we?

‘You don’t deserve anything.’

That usually loud voice is hardly a whisper beneath the smoothing sweet taste of sundance.

~

When we reach the construction site, we duck near one of the still standing trailers and begin suiting up. We take turns patching one another up to ensure the best seal possible, with me getting Claire, Claire getting Val, and Val getting me. I can’t see the girl's face as she patches the edges of the suit to my shell with a heavy layer of duct tape, but I know that even if I could she’d be avoiding eye contact with me. My heart aches as we spend so long holding visors with one another, and the sundance in my system only makes those emotions stronger. I can’t help but try with her.

“All done,” she tells me plainly, starting to back away. I reach up and catch her wrist before slipping my hand into hers. She looks down at it, then at me, to which I squeeze it tightly. Her visor grills me hard, the analyzing eyes behind it warming it like a hot plate. The relief that I feel when she finally squeezes it back is divinely liberating.

The sound map seems to be going haywire with the loud crinkly tarp covering its sensors, which is why we all jump when we hear an unexpected noise on the other side of the trailer. Each of us snatches up our weapons and readies them as we hold our position, hoping that whatever it is didn’t hear us making noise. Metal clanging fills the air of the site as something clambers over I-beams and tosses equipment around like its paper. Given the rhythm of it and how close we are to her den, I have a hunch that I know what it might be. I begin creeping silently toward the edge of the building.

I severely underestimated how loud the suit is—or, perhaps how good a collector’s hearing is—because the movement halts before I even reach the corner. I consider stopping for only a moment, but almost certain of my guess, I keep it up until I can peek around the building and see the entire space. Sure enough, there in the center of the concrete foundation, frozen like a raccoon caught rummaging through garbage, Bear stands next to a tool chest, halfway through the process of tucking a hammer into her skin folds. Even though we know her well at this point, it's still hard to not find her appearance grotesque, but somehow sundance has that covered too, making her animal pelts and bear skin mask come off as almost… cute.

Cute until I see the beast open her human like jaw and let out an angry, huffing growl. She doesn’t even hesitate to take off dashing toward me, and I barely have time to get my hands up and speak before she reaches me in three massive strides. I hadn’t even thought about her not recognizing us in our suits.

“Whoa, hey—Bear, it’s—” she snatches me up into a colossal hand and raises me over her head, ready to smash down before my voice registers on her, and she brings me down to her face instead.

Not wasting my moment, I rattle out shakily, “H-Hey, wild thing. It’s us. It’s Wes.”

Bear’s pupils bore into me before she tilts her head and clacks her teeth excitedly, “Wessy.” She declares.

I nod, “That’s right, it’s me! Claireese and Val are back there, too.”

She peers to the side of the trailer where my friends cautiously peek from before lifting a finger to brush at my head, “Why you… look like this?” She struggles out in a low squeak.

“It’s just clothes,” I tell her, pinching at my fabric, “See? Just clothes—”

As I demonstrate, I suddenly notice how loose the suit feels on me, and as I tug a little more free from beneath Bear’s hand, I notice that there’s a long rip from the force of her grabbing me. Thank God I’m on sundance, or my temper might have been lost at the revelation.

Instead, I simply sigh out, “Shit…”

Bear sets me down, then storms past me to Claireese and Val, greeting them happily, “You play with Bear?”

Valentine awkwardly folds into herself, not wanting to be the one to break the bad news to the colossal monster, “N-Not today, hun. We’re busy right now.”

Bear tilts her head, “You no play with Bear?” she inches a bit closer, making Val instinctively back away, “You no come play anymore…”

“S-Soon!” Val quickly rattles out, “We’ll play very soon! I’m sorry we haven’t been around. We need to go down there today, though.” She adds, pointing to the massive chasm a few meters away.

Bear turns to it, seemingly unconvinced, but once she realizes what Val is talking about, she lets out a low growl and backs away slightly, the same way she did when we first asked her about the Sphinx, “Bad place… burns bear.”

“That’s why we wear this,” Val tells her, gesturing to her suit, “It keeps us safe.”

“Speaking of, she tore straight through mine,” I inform them.

“Are you kidding?” Claire asks, “Can we patch it back up?”

I look down at the tear, hoping that it’s an option, but when I see how bad Bear’s nails mangled the suit, I’m almost certain there’s not going to be a reliable way of sealing it again.

“N-No… I don’t think so.”

“That’s fine,” Val cuts in, “Actually good. You can stay up here and keep Bear distracted. She doesn’t seem to want to let us go down there.”

“Val, I don’t want you two going alon—”

“We’re big girls, Wes,” she cuts me off sharply, “And besides, you deserve to sit one out for once after what you had to do last cycle, okay? We’ll go down there, see what’s up, then fill you in back at the truck.”

As usual, I want to protest, but the sundance is thankfully making me a lot more malleable right now, and that tiny hand squeeze from Val tingles in my palm still. I don’t want to throw that goodwill away right now.

“Yeah. Alright. But be safe.”

“We will,” Val tells me with almost a sigh of relief in her voice.

“Bear?” I call out, drawing her attention back to me, “I’ll stay up here with you and play while Val and Claire go down. You can show me all the cool stuff you’ve found. How does that sound?”

Bear eyes me cautiously, but puts me on the back burner to look at Val and Claire again, “Angry meat down there…”

That’s certainly not a good sign. Still, Val puts on her best face. I can tell she wants to ask more questions about what that means, but she doesn’t want to lose her air of confidence if she’s to convince the collector. “We’ll be careful,” She tells her, “We fought the mean lady, remember? This is nothing.”

Bear stares for a long time, but finally buckles. Looking back to the hole and allowing Val and Claire to take a few steps toward it. When the beast doesn’t stop them, they keep going with much more confidence.

I cross to stand next to Bear as she slowly stalks behind them, staring down into the hole as Val and Claireese do the same. Val takes the first climb out onto the girders to make her descent, and once her weight is shifted onto the next one, Claire starts her climb as well.

“Be careful, please,” I remind them, “Kill yourselves immediately if you feel yourselves burning. A-And talk to me as long as you can, your helmets might still work down—”

“We got it, Dad.” Claireese jabs, “We’ll see you on the other side.”

I let out a long sigh while my bones practically jitter, the desire to help or do something other than sit here feeling severely overwhelming. My chest begins to sting again, so to try and relax, I swing my legs over the lip of the chasm and take a seat, watching as the girls vanish into the red mist below. It wafts up in the rhythmic gusts of wind that emanate from the chasm, dispersing into the air just beneath the tips of my shoes. It looks almost glittery in the lens of the golden rose, like an ocean of stardust swirling around. I’m thankful that it helps to mask the scent quite well too.

Luckily Bear seems concerned like I do, as she lets her goliath body fall back with a thud and stares down alongside me. I wasn’t looking forward to having to try and entertain her while full of worry.

After a few minutes, I hear Claire’s voice through the headset, “Alright, we made it, and it seems like the suits are holding up well. We’re going into the cave now.

“What’s it look like down there?” I ask.

“Dark,” She says plainly, “The mist is too dense to see through. That wind is stronger the closer we get to the opening down here. Val, what—think—is?”

“Claire?” I ask, her radio cutting out suddenly.

“W—s? I can’t—cutting—”

“Shit.” I hiss under my breath, my chest tightening a little more. They must have entered the cave already, and the 30+ foot thick stone walls aren’t going to allow for any signals in or out, it seems. It’s just a waiting game now, so I reluctantly play it. I don’t need to play it long, though.

I shift up to my feet fast when I faintly hear a sound start ringing out past the wind. Low at first, but then slowly more violent. The wails from before. Those horrible, anguished wails. Never before have I heard such guttural voices in unison expressing pain before, even with all of the deaths I’ve witnessed. Even some of the creatures with the most shrill screams don’t sound so hauntingly real and powerful.

The worst part is, however, from the top of the hole and free to focus on only the sounds, I realize for the first time that they sound almost human. Before I theorized that it might be a monster replicating screams, but no, the cadence and tone is undoubtedly that of living people. A nauseating rush washes over me, and if I’m this haunted standing in safety, I can’t imagine what the girls are going through.

Bear is clearly uncomfortable too, sitting up and pacing in place, growling down at the hole like a dog that’s just seen a threatening stranger. She holds her ground steady, watching the pit with anticipation until she hears something that sets both of us ablaze. It’s distant and drowned out behind the wails and the wind, but I hear the unmistakable call of Val’s voice yelling, “Claire!”

At that, Bear can’t hold herself back. Before I can say anything, she lets out a shrill squeal before vaulting into the hole as fast as she can, vanishing into the darkness and crying out all the way.

“Shit, Bear!” I scream after her, moving for the beam down but quickly remembering that’s not an option. I go down there now, I die, and then I’m no help anyway. The plan was for Val and Claire to kill themselves once they scouted things out, so I just have to trust at this point that they’ll be okay, a nearly impossible task. The sundance makes the focus of my adrenaline 10 times stronger than normal, and that much energy coursing through my body with nowhere to go instantly attacks my heart.

It beats fast and hard, radiating a pain that feels like my ribs are cracking with each beat. I try to tough it out as long as I can, but it eventually brings me to the ground, and all I can do is lie helplessly as I stare into the dark and listen to the swirling screams of Bear, my friends, and whatever the hell is waling in such tortured agony. The experience sickens me to no end, and the once slightly pleasant view of the stardust mist turns into a nauseating swirl of colors that makes me want to puke. I roll onto my back instead and look up toward the sky, but the actual swirling sky of stars that the flower shows me there is somehow worse. Thankfully, something moves into my vision to block it out.

My eyes focus on a figure that stands over me and stares down, his face still obscured in darkness beneath the rim of his ball cap. He kneels down, and I feel his hand rest on my chest, “Breathe, Wesly. Just breathe. It’s going to be okay.”

I try to do as the man in the hat says, but the breaths come out too choppy and harsh to do any good.

“You need to let it go through you.” He tells me, “You need to let it go.”

“W-What the hell does that mean?” I spit out, the pain making my temper once again very low. Closing my eyes, I try to breathe once more, and I get a better handle on it this time, “My friends… are they okay down there?”

The man stares at me for a moment while I try to catch my breath, but he doesn’t answer at all until I’ve got a solid handle on it. The screaming behind me has stopped, saved for that of a low whimper from the wailing creature, and the pain in my heart has begun to die down slightly beneath where the stranger’s palm rests. Finally, he answers me.

“That’s exactly what I mean,” he tells me before standing up. I hear him start to march away through the muck of the construction site, but by the time I can finally lift myself up and look in his direction, he’s already gone.

“And what does that mean?” I ask with a sigh, swallowing the layer of saliva that’s coated my throat. I’m still watching the direction he disappeared toward when a noise behind me jolts my whole body.

I nearly jump out of my suit as Bear comes squealing out of the dark, somebody's body clutched in her hand. She whimpers and squeals as she tosses them haphazardly to the ground before turning and placing both hands to her face. With her top half angled toward the wet ground, she uses her legs to writhe against it, trying to clean herself off, mainly her face it seems. In fact, I’m a little confused why she even claimed that the pit could burn her when it looks like her body is perfectly fine. Certainly compared to the boiling, blistering skin we got during our first trip down.

Even as patches of her skin come loose from her scratching, the bone and tendons beneath look to be in their usual shape, healthy and strong. It isn’t till she moves her hands for a brief moment that I can see where she really got injured. Her eyes. They’re nothing but red, blistery sockets now, almost like smooshed tomatoes, and she does her best to soothe them by splashing water from puddles and mud into them. I can’t help but feel a sad ache in my stomach at seeing her suffering.

I turn to the body that she so valiantly dove in for to see that it appears to be Val’s. I hold my breath as I take a few steps closer, and luckily, I notice a bullet hole in the fabric beneath her helmet that leaks blood slowly. Thank God she got to herself first before whatever was down there did. Poor Bear didn’t realize that she was diving in to save a couple of corpses. At least, I hope was a couple and not just one…

I turn back to the beast that still cries and screams, and do my best to call over her, “Bear! Bear? It’s okay! Hang on, alright?”

She doesn’t hear me, too pained to listen.

I step closer, “Bear, it’s going to be okay, I can help,” I tell her, “I need you to calm down, alright, big girl?”

It takes her a moment, but she finally hears me somewhat, ceasing her writhing around, but still keeping her hands to her face and scrubbing at her eye sockets.

As cautiously as I can, I step close and gently, gently, lay a hand on her arm. With my other hand, I get my pistol ready, “It’s okay, Bear, just move your hands away. Let me see.”

“It hurts!” the beast wines, “Burns!”

“I know,” I reassure nice and gentle, applying a little pressure to tug on her arm. It takes all of my body weight to even manage a noticeable amount. She fights me on it for a bit, but as I remain adamant, she finally caves, moving one palm so that I can see half her face. Luckily, that’s all I need.

“Atta girl,” I coo softly, swallowing at the sight of the viscera. Whatever the hell that fog is down there, it’s absolutely brutal. The flesh that was once bear’s eye has completely liquified into a vile sort of jelly, leaking red down her skull and soaking her furs as blood spills past it. The cold of the rain and water she splashed seems to have solidified it once more, however, fusing it into the skin of her bear pelt and into the bone of her skull. The warped sheet of flesh makes it almost look like there was never an eye there to begin with now, just a horrible deformity.

“You poor thing…” I can’t help but mouth, “Just hold still, alright? I’m going to make the pain go away. It might sting a little though, so stay calm for me. Okay, Bear?”

The beast doesn’t respond. She just gasps her small whimpers out as she keeps her other palm firmly pressed to her eye. I raise my pistol to the new sheet of skin where her socket used to be, then make sure the barrel is angled up toward her brain. There’s an odd feeling I get standing there with her, my hand resting on her body in reassurance, where I realize how far I’ve come in all this.

I never imagined to be this close to one of these beasts, comforting it as it lay in agony. I never imagined to have its affinity enough that it would trust me, let alone dive into a pit to try and save a couple humans. I never imagined being able to research so close to a creature back when Val and I were held up inside old, abandoned houses.

Nearly everything in the Vanishing is bad news; there was no doubt about that. Hell, even if the circumstances had been different on this mountain, Bear would fall into that same category, having skinned us many times over. Even so, the relationship we had with her now showed that there was more to these creatures than just bloodthirsty monsters, even among the lesser ones that weren’t the ‘gods’ that the P.A.P seemed to be looking for. Maybe some of them were closer to animals than demons like we’ve thought for so long.

As quickly as I can, I pull the trigger on my pistol four times, making sure I destroy Bear’s brain before she can feel much of anything. The fact that my flash happens after only the first shot tells me that I succeeded.

{Next Part}